travail

The author of the novel “Good Company,” on tales of travail from Edith Wharton, Elena Ferrante and others.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026

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

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

He has already endured five decades of political travail and far worse from life.

From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2020

When I came to my cabin after trying to help Charley in his travail, Robbie was tying a trouble light to the iron frame of my sad bed.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck

That and oil price buoyancy pushed the peso up 10% against the dollar this year despite budgetary travails.

From Barron's ● Jun. 22, 2026

You can be scared into saving by reading the travails of a person who has realized that they’ve been left behind with Social Security and little else.

From MarketWatch ● May 13, 2026

The $6 million verdict against the two companies is the first of more than 3,000 lawsuits pending in California courts that seek to hold social-media companies liable for the travails of young people.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026

Any success for England coach Brendon McCullum at this tournament has come with the caveat of the winter's Ashes travails in Australia.

From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2026

She thanks God for giving her strength to get through the day’s travails.

From "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario

English translations of the Bible often use it in this context, such as in Isaiah 66:7: “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.”

From Washington Post ● Oct. 10, 2020

It be like knowing you are what praying women had in mind when they travailed for tomorrow.

From "Watch Us Rise" by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan

Come, and satisfy the soul that travailed for you in Olivet!

From Old Wine and New Occasional Discourses by Joseph Cross

The early Church travailed in pain for the souls of dying men.

From The Art of Soul-Winning by J.W. Mahood

I have groaned; I have travailed: I am weary.

From The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Vol. I by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Here was a man who could not be tempted by honors, who refused remuneration for his services, and who against the greatest odds stood staunchly for everything which would help his travailing country.

From The History of Cuba, vol. 2 by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Why, we shall soon have you believing that only you in this groaning and travailing creation suffer.

From Fr?ulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim

Why this groaning and travailing of the creature?

From A Short History of Greek Philosophy by John Marshall

At that very moment, Douglass, looking at a picture that should have logically thrilled him to the core, was travailing in a morose discontent quite incompatible with his environment.

From The Song of the Wolf by Frank Mayer

After "travailing all winter long," sleeping on snow without shelter, and suffering other hardships, they reached Europe in June, 1247, where they were "rejoiced over as men that had been risen from death to life."

From Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) The Romance of Reality by Charles Morris