List of 426 Sets of Synonyms - How they Differ - Total of 2307 Words - 424

SYNONYMS: work, labor, toil, drudgery, travail.
These nouns refer to the exertion of physical or mental faculties in order to accomplish something, contrasted with play or recreation.

Work is the most widely applicable; it alone can refer not only to the efforts of persons but also to the activity of machines and the forces of nature. Machines do much work for man today. Women often work as hard as men.
Labor is largely restricted to human effort, especially physical and manual. He was sentenced to six years hard labor.
Toil is principally applicable to strenuous and fatiguing labor. The farmer toiled from sunrise to sunset.
Drudgery is applied to dull, wearisome, monotonous, and sometimes demeaning labor. Hers was a life of hard drudgery.
Travail is applied to work involving great effort and pain or suffering. It was with great travail they completed the job.