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Travail vs Assiduous - What's the difference?

travail | assiduous |

As a noun travail

is (archaic) arduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship.

As a verb travail

is to toil.

As an adjective assiduous is

hard-working, diligent or regular (in attendance or work); industrious.

travail

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • (archaic) Arduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship.
  • * Hooker
    • As everything of price, so this doth require travail .
  • *, II.20:
  • *:Travell and pleasure, most unlike in nature, are notwithstanding followed together by a kind of I wot not what natural conjunction.
  • * 1936 , (Djuna Barnes), Nightwood , Faber & Faber 2007, p. 38:
    • He had thought of making a destiny for himself, through laborious and untiring travail .
  • Specifically, the labor of childbirth.
  • (obsolete, countable) An act of working; labor (US), labour (British).
  • (obsolete) The eclipse of a celestial object.

    • References

    *

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To toil.
  • * Latimer
    • slothful persons which will not travail for their livings
  • To go through the labor of childbirth.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , John XIV:
    • A woman when she traveyleth hath sorowe, be cause her houre is come: but as sone as she is delivered off her chylde she remembreth no moare her anguysshe, for ioye that a man is borne in to the worlde.

    assiduous

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Hard-working, diligent or regular (in attendance or work); industrious.
  • * 1831 , , The Surgeon's Daughter , ch. 2:
    • He was officious in the right time and place, quiet as a lamb when his patron seemed inclined to study or to muse, active and assiduous to assist or divert him whenever it seemed to be wished.
  • * 1880 , , Washington Square , ch. 33:
    • He died after three weeks' illness, during which Mrs. Penniman, as well as his daughter, had been assiduous at his bedside.
  • * 1917 , , "Bill the Bloodhound" in The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories :
    • A good deal of assiduous attention had enabled Henry to win this place in her affections.
  • * 2009 , Will Pavia , " Allen Klein, accountant turned manager of the Beatles, dies at 77," The Times (UK), 6 July:
    • Klein rose to prominence in the 1960s by assiduous application of accounting methods to the music industry.

    Usage notes

    * Since the 18th century, this term has sometimes carried a connotation of servility.

    Synonyms

    * meticulous, diligent, sedulous * See also

    Derived terms

    * assiduously

    References