travailler

From Middle French travailler, from Old French traveillier (“to suffer”), from Vulgar Latin *tripaliāre, present active infinitive of *tripaliō (“to torture; to toil, labor”), from tripalium (“torture instrument”), from Latin tripālis (“having three stakes”). Compare Franco-Provençal travalyer, Catalan treballar, Portuguese trabalhar and Spanish trabajar.

• IPA^(key): /tʁa.va.je/

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travailler

1. to work
2. to study
3. to struggle

   "Elle, qui n'était pas grosse comme un œuf / envieuse s'étend, et s'enfle, et se travaille / pour égaler l'animal en grosseur" - Jean De La Fontaine

   It, no larger than an egg, envious, elongated, stretched, and struggled / to equal the animal in size

• (work): bosser (France, informal), taffer (France, informal), turbiner (France, informal)

• travail
• travailliste
• travailleur
• travailleuse

• “travailler” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• travaillier

From Old French traveiller.

travailler

1. to suffer (be in a state of suffering)

• Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

• French: travailler

travailler

1. Alternative form of traveillier

This verb conjugates as a first-group verb ending in -er. The forms that would normally end in *-aill, *-aills, *-aillt are modified to ail, auz, aut. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.