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. 10, 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

They, and all beings, as the naturalist Henry Beston wrote, are “caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”

From New York Times ● May 2, 2020

He saw him through his travail of celibacy and felt that he was guiding him into calm waters.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

Martin O'Neill needed a win after his recent travails and this was a stroll in the park that he could not have imagined.

From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026

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

Once she reached its gates, the worst of her travails would be over.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

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

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

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

Before she travailed she brought forth; before her pains came she was delivered of a man-child.

From An Amicable Controversy with a Jewish Rabbi, on The Messiah's Coming by J. R. (John Ranicar) Park

Of all princes in Europe the emperor hath travailed most in the cause of religion, yet, haply by some secret judgment of God, he hath not obtained the end.

From The Reign of Mary Tudor by Ernest Rhys

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

Yet it serves against its will, travailing as a woman in pain, with the supreme desire to be liberated from this service of the wicked, condemned world.

From Epistle Sermons, Vol. III Trinity Sunday to Advent by Martin Luther

"Now leave my bower, Willie," she said, "Now leave me to my lane; Was never man in a lady's bower35 When she was travailing."

From English and Scottish Ballads, Volume II (of 8) by Various

We can, at the present moment, experience its stirrings in the womb of a travailing age—an age waiting for the appointed hour at which it can cast its burden and yield its fairest fruit.

From The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh by Shoghi Effendi

The great vision is the woman travailing in pain to be delivered of a manchild.

From Studies in Prophecy by Arno C. Gaebelein