toil

Related to toil: Double double toil and trouble

toil for (someone or something)

1. To work continually and very strenuously for the benefit of someone else. I spent the summer toiling for my neighbor in order to save up for a new bike. I decided to start my own business so I wouldn't have to spend another day toiling for anyone else.
2. To work continually and very strenuously in order to accomplish or achieve something. The marginalized group has spent the last 20 years toiling for equality. Congratulations, everyone. We've all toiled long and hard for this day.
3. To work continually and very strenuously in return for something. The new farmhand toils for a place to sleep at night and three meals a day. He won't accept payment of any kind. I'm done toiling for just seven bucks an hour at this lousy restaurant.
See also: toil

toil over (someone or something)

1. To work continually, diligently, and strenuously to complete something. I've been toiling over this project for weeks now, and it still feels like it's never going to be done.
2. Of a surgeon, to spend long, continuous hours operating on a patient. Our team toiled over him for nearly six hours, but in the end we weren't able to save his life. I'm so sorry.
See also: over, toil

toil up (something)

To climb something with great, prolonged, and continuous effort. We toiled up the mountain, hoping to reach the peak before noon. The crew will have to park down below and toil up the hill with all of their equipment.
See also: toil, up
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

toil for someone

 
1. to work on behalf of someone or for someone's benefit. I don't mind toiling for her as long as she thanks me. I don't know why I toil for you. You are totally ungrateful.
2. to do someone else's work. I don't know why I should have to toil for you. Do your own work! I won't toil for him. He can do his own work.
See also: toil

toil for something

 
1. to work toward a particular goal or ideal. I am willing to toil for something I believe in. She spent the afternoon toiling for her favorite charity.
2. to work for a certain rate of pay. It's hard to toil for slave's wages. Do you expect me to toil endlessly for such low pay?
See also: toil

toil over someone or something

to work hard on someone or something. The doctors toiled over the patient for hours. Ken toiled over his model plane well into the night.
See also: over, toil

toil up something

to work hard to climb something steep. The hikers toiled up the slope slowly. As the bus toiled up the hill, we worried that the engine might be overheating.
See also: toil, up
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • toil for
  • toil for (someone or something)
  • toile
  • toil over
  • toil over (someone or something)
  • have (someone) under (one's) thumb
  • keep (someone) under (one's) thumb
  • gripe to (someone or something)
  • gripe to (someone or something) about (someone or something)
  • struggle with
References in classic literature
The tears gushed into the eyes of Laurence, and he acknowledged that Eliot had not toiled in vain.
Grandfathers Chair
And Adrienne toiled the succeeding day, not only until her fingers and body ached, but, until her very heart ached.
Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief
And while the Elves wept, he told them how patiently she had toiled, how her fadeless love had made the dark cell bright and beautiful.
These and many other things he told them; for little Violet had won the love of many of the Frost-Spirits, and even when they killed the flowers she had toiled so hard to bring to life and beauty, she spoke gentle words to them, and sought to teach them how beautiful is love.
Flower Fables
Thus freed from the necessity of toil, and having lost the steadfast influence of a great purpose,--great, at least, to him,--he abandoned himself to habits from which it might have been supposed the mere delicacy of his organization would have availed to secure him.
But what could be the purpose of the unseasonable toil, which was again resumed, as the watchman knew by the lines of lamplight through the crevices of Owen Warland's shutters?
Raising the instrument with which he was about to begin his work, he let it fall upon the little system of machinery that had, anew, cost him months of thought and toil. It was shattered by the stroke!
Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the more diligently by an anxiety lest death should surprise him in the midst of his labors.
Pass we over a long space of intense thought, yearning effort, minute toil, and wasting anxiety, succeeded by an instant of solitary triumph: let all this be imagined; and then behold the artist, on a winter evening, seeking admittance to Robert Danforth's fireside circle.
There was, however, a view of the matter which Annie and her husband, and even Peter Hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would have satisfied them that the toil of years had here been worthily bestowed.
On the other hand, had he found Annie what he fancied, his lot would have been so rich in beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might have wrought the beautiful into many a worthier type than he had toiled for; but the guise in which his sorrow came to him, the sense that the angel of his life had been snatched away and given to a rude man of earth and iron, who could neither need nor appreciate her ministrations,--this was the very perversity of fate that makes human existence appear too absurd and contradictory to be the scene of one other hope or one other fear.
Mosses From An Old Manse and other stories
Critique: While essential reading for all aspiring and novice gardeners, "Lazy-Ass Gardening: Maximize Your Soil, Minimize Your Toil" will prove to have great and practical value for even the more experienced gardener.
Lazy-Ass Gardening
'Why bother about winter?' asked the grasshopper, We have got plenty of food at present.' But the ants went on their way and continued their toil.
Shelve everything and make devolution work
Both have never got their hands dirty from a day's honest toil.
Royal mania beggars belief
(Schou Andreassen, 2014) Controlled motivation relates to toil, whereas both controlled and autonomous motivation (Mircica, 2014) associate with immoderate work.
Workaholic behavior patterns in organizations