toil
Usage
What are other ways to say toil?
Toil suggests wearying or exhausting labor: toil that breaks down the worker's health. Drudgery suggests continuous, dreary, and dispiriting work, especially of a menial or servile kind: the drudgery of household tasks. Labor particularly denotes hard manual work: backbreaking labor; arduous labor. Work is the general word and may apply to exertion that is either easy or hard: fun work; heavy work.
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.
Most toil on the building sites of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia or in hotels and factories there, while others work in India and Malaysia.
From Barron's • Feb. 16, 2026
Like lottery winners, wealthy individuals fear their offspring might blow money they haven’t had to toil for.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 27, 2025
The results of McCartney’s unceasing post-Beatles toil are evinced by the stats.
From Salon • Nov. 3, 2025
While United could not find an equaliser, despite their attacking toil, Bayindir's error meant it was almost inevitable the focus after this opening day defeat would be the goalkeeper.
From BBC • Aug. 17, 2025
Among the phrases he minted were “blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” “their finest hour,” “the few,” “the end of the beginning,” “business as usual, ” “iron curtain, ” “summit meeting, ’’ and “peaceful coexistence. ”
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
