It's the word of the day for April 25th.

Today's word is travail, also pronounced Traveille and spelled T-R-A-V-A-L.

Traveil is a noun. It's a formal word, usually used in the plural, that refers to a difficult

experience or situation. Here's the word used in a sentence from the LA Times. Written by Sammy

Birch, the film, Coyote versus Acme, follows the travails of the Desert Denison, who is tired of

being slammed with Acme products as he tries to outsmart

the roadrunner. Coyote finally decides to hire a lawyer to take the Acme Corporation to court

for product liability, such as faulty rocket skates and defective aerial bombs.

The word Treveil traces back to Trepalium, a late Latin word for an instrument of torture.

We don't know exactly what a tripolium looked like, but the word's history gives us an idea.

Tripolium comes from the Latin adjective Tripolis, which means having three stakes, from tri,

meaning three, and Palus meaning stake.

Trapalium eventually led to the Anglo-French verb, Travaille, meaning to torment,

but also more mildly to trouble and to journey.

The Anglo-French noun Travaille was borrowed into English in the 13th century,

along with another descendant of Traveille,

the word travel.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.