the.com/toil
the daily grind that built every wonder and broke every back that built it
means To work long and hard at something exhausting, or the grueling labor itself.
from From Anglo-Norman 'toiler,' to dispute or strive, which traces back to Latin 'tudiculare,' to crush or pound (as in grinding olives in a press). The sense slid from 'struggle and contend' into 'wear yourself out laboring' — fittingly, the word's own root is about being crushed.
- old root
- From Latin tudiculare, meaning to crush or stir
- and trouble
- Shakespeare's witches knew toil rhymes with suffering
- sweat math
- The pyramids took 20 years of relentless human labor
- word twist
- Once meant a struggle or fierce dispute, not work
irish potato famine — 1 million died from 1845-1852 due to crop failure and forced agricultural labor
california gold rush — 300,000+ miners worked grueling 12-16 hour days in sierra nevada foothills 1848-1855
suez canal construction — 123,000 egyptian workers died building the canal 1859-1869, averaging 5 deaths per day