Etymologically
Log in

toil

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the English word toil

English has two words spelled toil, the one for hard work and the one for a hunting net, now used mostly in the plural.[1][2]

Pronunciation

  • /tɔɪl/, /ˈtɔɪəl/[3]

toil1 hard work, to labour

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1300 Body and Soul
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman toiler via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin tudes

Etymology

The word for hard work is inherited from Middle English toilen, with the noun toile,[4][5][6] borrowed from Anglo-Norman toiler (“to stir about, dispute, wrangle”) and toil (“trouble, argument, conflict”).[7][8][9][10] The OED takes the noun partly from Anglo-Norman and, in its later uses, partly from the English verb.[7] The Anglo-Norman verb is a variant of Old French toeillier (“to drag about, make dirty”),[5][2] also tooillier,[9][8][11] the source of French touiller (“to mix, stir up”).[9][7] It comes ultimately from Latin tudiculō (“to stir about, crush”),[7][9][1][12] from tudicula (“machine for crushing olives”),[12][9][1] a diminutive of tudes (“hammer”),[1][12] akin to tundō (“to beat, crush”).[13][1] Etymonline adds Proto-Indo-European *(s)teu- (“to push, stroke, knock, beat”) as the root behind the Latin noun.[5] The OED compares the Scots tuilyie,[7] which Weekley takes as the survival of the earlier sense "to contend".[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To pull, drag or tug about, of a violent or hostile action: about 1300, in Body and Soul.[7][5] Barnhart finds the verb implied in toiling in Arthour and Merlin, and the noun "turmoil, contention, dispute" in Kyng Alisaunder, both probably before 1300;[2] the OED first records the noun, "strife, fighting", about 1330 in Arthour and Merlin.[7]

Semantic evolution

The first English senses are all of violence and dispute: to fight or struggle, to contend in a lawsuit or an argument,[7][8] and the noun for a battle, a brawl or a quarrel.[7][9] In cookery the verb also meant to stir.[7] Etymonline records the Middle English noun toiling for the working of leather by pulling it with the teeth and for pleading at court.[5] The sense of labouring hard appears with the verb, in Piers Plowman (before 1376),[2][7] and the OED sees this branch as largely an English development,[7] though the Anglo-Norman verb is recorded in the reflexive sense "to work hard" in the late 14th century.[7] Etymonline suggests influence from the older, fuller sense of till, and that the noun's sense of hard work may come from the idea of a fight with obstacles.[5] The noun took on that sense later than the verb: the OED has it from 1495, in a ledger of A. Halyburton,[7] Barnhart from 1594 and Etymonline from the 1590s.[2][5] The sense of moving slowly and painfully along or up something is recorded from 1563,[7] struggling mentally from 1600 in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing,[7] and making others work or tiring them out from the 1540s.[7][5] Johnson (1755) gives only "labour; fatigue" for the noun in this meaning.[15] Make a toil of a pleasure, to turn something enjoyable into a burden, is recorded from 1603.[7] In dialect, to toil one's bones meant to wear oneself out with labour in Renfrewshire and Northumberland, and in Wiltshire and Somerset the form twile meant to disturb or fatigue.[16]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – verb, to pull or drag about (obsolete by 1588).[7][5]
  • c. 1330 – noun, strife, fighting, a battle.[7]
  • c. 1400 – verb, to labour hard, in Piers Plowman.[7] Barnhart dates the sense to before 1376.[2]
  • c. 1400 – verb, in cookery, to stir (obsolete by 1560).[7]
  • c. 1425 – verb, to fight; to dispute (both obsolete by 1540).[7]
  • 1495 – noun, hard labour.[7] Barnhart dates it to 1594.[2]
  • before 1500 – noun, a laborious task or spell of work.[7]
  • 1549 – verb, to tire someone out with work.[7]
  • 1563 – verb, to make slow, painful progress.[7]
  • 1597 – noun, verbal dispute, in Romeo and Juliet.[7]
  • 1600 – verb, to struggle mentally.[7]
  • 1612 – noun, the result of hard work.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Long, hard, tiring labour of body or mind: years of toil in the coal mines.[17][13][7]
  2. A spell of such work; a laborious task or struggle.[7][13]
  3. The result of hard work, something produced by it.[7][8]
  4. (archaic) strife, fighting; a battle, now mainly in the plural.[13][8][17]

Verb

  1. To work hard and for a long time: The crew toiled at the repairs all night.[17][13][7]
  2. To move forward slowly and with great effort, usually with along, up or through: They toiled up the dunes.[17][13][7]
  3. To struggle mentally.[7][8]
  4. To tire out with work, or to make work hard.[7][8]
  5. (archaic) To gain or bring about by hard work.[17][7]
  6. (obsolete, c. 1300–1588) To pull or drag about.[7][8]
  7. (obsolete, c. 1425–1540) To fight; to dispute or argue.[7][8]

Word family

  • toiler
  • toilful
  • toilfully
  • toilworn
  • toilsome
  • untoiling
  • overtoil

toil2 net, snare

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1529 before 1529, Skelton
Borrowed from
Middle French toile
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *teks-
Etymology tree of toil2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin tēla
French toile
English toil
From the same root · toil2
French toilette ← toile

Etymology

The net is borrowed from Middle French toile (“hunting net”),[7][2][5][6] a specific use of the noun for web or cloth,[7][5] from Old French teile,[2][12][8] from Latin tēla (“web, woven stuff, warp of a fabric”),[12][5][9][18] which stands for *texlā,[18][9][1] from texō (“to weave”),[5][2][18] from Proto-Indo-European *teks-.[12] The OED notes that the hunting sense is recorded in French slightly later than in English, in 1530 in Palsgrave, and compares Old Occitan tela, with the same sense in the 13th century.[7] In Anglo-Norman teile is recorded from 1171–74 for woven cloth and a spider's web.[10] The same French noun is the source of toilet, through the diminutive French toilette.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A net or nets enclosing the ground into which game is driven: before 1529, in Skelton's poetry.[7][2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1520s,[5] and the plural is recorded from 1530, in Palsgrave.[7][2]

Semantic evolution

Weekley quotes a record of a hunt at Windsor forest in 1554, where a great toyle of four or five miles was made,[14] and Cotgrave glosses the French plural as nets to enclose or entangle wild beasts.[14] Figurative use followed quickly, in the singular from 1548 and in the plural from 1570.[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as any net or snare woven or meshed, quoting Antony and Cleopatra ("In her strong toil of grace").[15] The OED also has it for a trap for wild beasts from 1607 to 1841.[7] A verb formed from the noun meant to trap or drive into a toil from 1592;[7][13] it died out in the 19th century in that sense,[7] but survived in Newfoundland and the west of England for setting a trap, as in Dorset, in Hardy's The Woodlanders.[7][16] The noun is now used mostly in the plural and figuratively, as in the toils of the law.[5][2][8]

Timeline

  • before 1529 – net or nets for enclosing game, in the singular; the singular is obsolete by 1852.[7][2]
  • 1530 – the plural, toils.[7][2]
  • 1548 – figurative, a snare, in the singular.[7]
  • 1570 – figurative, in the plural.[7]
  • 1592 – verb, to catch in a toil (obsolete by 1835).[7][13]
  • 1607 – a trap for wild beasts (obsolete by 1841).[7]
  • 1727 – the toils of a net, its meshes.[7]
  • c. 1811 – verb, to set a trap, in Newfoundland and the west of England.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Usually toils: something that holds a person fast or entangles them, a snare: caught in the toils of a long legal battle.[13][8][7]
  2. Usually toils: a net or nets set to enclose game; now literary.[13][7]
  3. (obsolete, 1607–1841) A trap for wild beasts.[7][8]

Verb

  1. (archaic) To catch in or as if in a net; to ensnare.[13][8][7]
  2. In western English dialect and in Newfoundland, to set a trap.[16][7][8]

Word family

  • entoil

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  12. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  14. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  17. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Toil.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/toil. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·