This week’s theme
Short words

This week’s words
dint
moil
guff
weft
quaff

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(moyl)

MEANING:

verb intr.: 1. To work hard; to toil. 2. To churn.
verb tr.: To make wet or muddy.
noun: 1. Hard work. 2. Confusion or turmoil.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French moillier (to moisten), from Latin mollis (soft). Ultimately from the Indo-European root mel- (soft), which also gave us malt, melt, mollify, smelt, enamel, and schmaltz. Earliest documented use: 1611.

USAGE:

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold.”
Robert W. Service; The Cremation of Sam McGee; 1907.

“There I am, look, down there, fighting for air in the heave and moil of the lunchtime working crowd, the only unsuited citizen, wondering which way to go.”
Giles Coren; Eating Out; The Times (London, UK); Oct 15, 2011.

See more usage examples of moil in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: