Dictionary

travailous en · ADJ

Etymology

From Middle English travailous (“laborious, wearisome”), from Anglo-Norman travaillous, Old French travaillos (“tiring, painful”). Equivalent to travail + -ous.

Meanings

1. (archaic, literary) Causing or involving travail; laborious; toilsome.
   • A pined and jaded man he was before his middle days, and unlikely to live to full age. Better his mother had been barren, than that her womb should have borne such a sorry travailous life! 1888, Charles M[ontagu] Doughty, chapter III, in Travels in Arabia Deserta, London: Jonathan Cape Ltd. & The Medici Society Limited, page 59:
   • […] of my redemption thence, / And portance in travailous history, c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, edited by Michael Neill, Othello, the Moor of Venice (Oxford World's Classics), Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, published 2008, →ISBN, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 223, lines 138–139:
   • Life goes on whether you like it or not. Make the best of it and move on with it no matter how travailous it can be. Don't feel disappointed 2014 January 29, @ShykeLuvAll, Twitter (post):

Forms

Synonyms

travailsome