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E 0927 TOIL
The word " toil " is of
unknown origin .
H 0964 ה א ל ת
Concept of root : toiling
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Hebrew word
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pronunciation
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English meanings
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ה א ל ת
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tela’à
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toil
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Related English words
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toil
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Comparison between European words and
Hebrew
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Languages
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Words
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Pronunciation
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English meanings
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Similarity in roots
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Hebrew
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ה א ל ת
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tela’à
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toil
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t . l .(‘) .
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English
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toil
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toil
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t . l
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Hebrew *TELA'À --- TOIL English
No etymology has been established for these two nouns. But their message is identical . This is too interesting to leave it out of our list , even if we can write no history of the two words.
A link with the verb "la'à = to be weary", that is found in entry E 0526 (Hebrew 0528) and to which a prefix T and a suffix "A" would have been added, is not convincing. One may become weary from toiling, but not the other way about, as a prefix T would suggest. The word tela'à of this entry simply does not mean "weariness", but "toil, hardship".
Note:
- English also has the verb "to toil". No etymology has been found though. It has been tried to reconduct "toil" to Latin "*tudicula" , which was a mill for crushing olives. It does not seem very near in message. This word for an oil-press moreover is based on a word "*tudes" that should have meant "hammer". As the asterix shows, this word anyhow did not exist in classic Latin.
There is another, older meaning for "to toil", that is "to contend, strife", that came to Middle English via Anglo-Norman from Old French, where it also meant "bloody fight, -mêlée". It is unclear how "hard work" develops out of "bloody mêlée". So we better maintain a question mark and the etymology of " to toil = to work very hard" remains uncertain.
Note:
- Hebrew. The noun "tela’à" should have a related verb "tal’à" and that existed in the Bible, but not with any meaning near to that of "toil". It clearly means "to hang". Existing explanations on the basis of the root "L Aleph Hè" are not very convincing as we stated, also because that root has no bearing on "hardship, toil".
Note:
- Proto-Semitic. We have no information from other Semitic languages that would permit making a hypothesis different from Hebrew.
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| Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 10/12/2012 at 16.35.33 |
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