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Stenka25 Posted 5 years ago
Vocabulary

Meaning of ‘TRAVAIL is bookish for labor’

Meaning of ‘TRAVAIL is bookish for labor’


Labor | Definition of Labor by Merriam-Webster (merriam-webster.com)

Noun

TRAVAIL is bookish for labor involving pain or suffering.

?years of travail were lost when the house burned


The passage above is from Merriam-Webster.


Here I cannot understand the meaning of ‘bookish’ in this context.


‘Bookish’ is ‘(of a person or way of life) devoted to reading and studying rather than worldly interests’, and I don’t have any problem with this definition of a dictionary.


But ‘TRAVAIL is bookish for labor involving pain or suffering’ does.

Does it mean TRAVAIL is some labor done with special attitude, kind of a labor characteristic of someone who is a bookworm willing to devote oneself to labor involving pain or suffering.

Am I right?

Thanks in advance.

  

Top answer

Stenka25 Here I cannot understand the meaning of ‘bookish’ in this context. Ahem. Am I right?

— Anonymous

  • Stenka25 Here I cannot understand the meaning of ‘bookish’ in this context.
  • Ahem.
  • Am I right?
  • No.
  • The word "travail" is never heard in conversation.
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2 Answers
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Stenka25Here I cannot understand the meaning of ‘bookish’ in this context.

Ahem.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bookish "of words : literary and formal as opposed to colloquial and informal"

Stenka25Doe
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Stenka25Here I cannot understand the meaning of ‘bookish’ in this context.

You need to know a not-so-well-kept secret of the English lexicon, and that is that words frequently have more than one meaning.

You cannot pick one meaning from a list of entries in a dictionary and expect it to fit every occurrence. That is a sure way to drive you to madness.

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