Etymology: Partly (i) < Anglo-Norman toil, toyl, toylle (compare Old French tooil , toeil , toel , Old French, Middle French touel , touil , tueil , Middle French touail , toueil , touil , toul , tuail ) battle, mêlée, massacre, trouble, confusion (late 12th cent.), argument, quarrel (c1250 or earlier), conflict, strife, fighting (end of the 13th cent. or earlier; < toiller , toillier , etc. toil v.¹), and partly (in later use) (ii) < toil v.¹ Compare tuilyie n.

Etymology: < Middle French toile hunting net (although first attested slightly later than in English: 1530 in Palsgrave; frequently in plural; French toile ), specific sense development of toile web (c1275 in Old French, with reference to a spider's web), cloth (see toile n.¹). Compare Old Occitan tela (13th cent. in this sense).

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman toiler, Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French toillier, Anglo-Norman and Middle French toiller (also Old French toelier , toeillier , tooillier , tuillier , Old French, Middle French toellier , Middle French toueillier , touillier , touellier ; French touiller , now chiefly regional) to wallow (late 12th cent., reflexive), to drag or pull (a person) through mud (late 12th cent.), to stir (something) (c1200), to make (something) dirty (end of the 13th cent. or earlier), to dispute, quarrel, argue (end of the 13th cent. or earlier), to work hard (last quarter of the 14th cent., reflexive, rare), to trouble (a person's brain) (first half of the 15th cent.), ultimately < classical Latin tudiculāre tudiculate v. The senses at Branch II. appear largely to show developments within English. Compare toly v., tuilyie v.Early modern orthoepists record variation of the diphthong between the reflexes of Middle English oi and ui (see E. J. Dobson Eng. Pronunc. 1500–1700 (ed. 2, 1968) II. §255). Such variation is also suggested by early modern rhymes (Dryden, for instance, rhymes toils and smiles ), although such rhymes are rare before the mid 17th cent. The Middle English form twille perhaps reflects shift of the stress from the first to the second element of the diphthong. Scots spellings in ti- , ty- reflect the merger of the reflexes of Middle English ui and Middle English ī . The Scots diphthongal forms with -ou- , -ow- are difficult to explain. They probably show the reflex of monophthongized northern Middle English forms with long open ō (compare E. J. Dobson Eng. Pronunc. 1500–1700 (ed. 2, 1968) II. §261 note 3) after the further development of a back glide before l ; compare the Scots forms at roll v.² In Middle English prefixed and unprefixed forms of the past participle are attested (see y- prefix).

Etymology: < toil n.²