travail

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Physical travail being an inexhaustible source of black comedy and a recurring metaphor for the human condition in Beckett’s writing, the depiction of mortal decline is on point.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 9, 2024

I learned that Dressler’s success had come after decades of triumph and travail.

From New York Times • Mar. 15, 2024

Mulaney's second personal travail – which he does not address at all – was his highly publicized divorce from Anna-Marie Tendler and subsequent relationship with Olivia Munn with whom he had a child.

From Salon • May 3, 2023

Nobody thinks they’re celebrating the success of the Normandy invasion, but these are still truly giddy occasions amid the usual annals of human travail.

From Washington Post • Oct. 11, 2019

And all this time, in travail, sobbing, gaining on the current, we rowed into the strait—Skylla to port and on our starboard beam Kharybdis, dire gorge of the salt sea tide.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer