a. Obs. or arch. Forms: 4 trau-, traveilous, (trauyliouse), 4–5 trauelous, 4–6 trauailous, 5 trauaillous, traueyllous, (travelos), 6 trauaylous, 4–6, 9 travailous. [a. OF. travaillos, traveilleus, -ous toilsome (12th c. in Godef.), f. travail TRAVAIL sb.1: see -OUS.] Full of or characterized by ‘travail’ or hard labor; toilsome; laborious; wearisome.
c. 1340. Hampole, Prose Tr. 29. Lya [Leah] es als mekill at say as trauyliouse, and betakyns actyfe lyfe.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 273. Þe opyn meke and pore and traveilouse lif of Crist. Ibid. (1382), Exod. vi. 6. Y the Lord, that schal lede ȝow out of the travelous prisoun of Egipciens.
1565. Stapleton, trans. Bede’s Hist. Ch. Eng., 21. To take any more such trauaylous iourneis.
1887. Washburn Reporter (KS), 30 Sept., 3/1.
| Helled by travailous, hell-born sorrow, | |
| Still thinking misery stops with the morrow. |
1888. Doughty, Arabia Deserta, I. 59. Better his mother had been barren, than that her womb should have borne such a sorry travailous life.
1894. Eugene V. Debs, in Daily Democrat (IN), 19 July, 1/2. The disturbances and disasters have no effect on the general condition, as such upheavals are naturally travailous, but the cause itself and the benefits gained by the strike are of inestimable value to the workingmen all over this country, if not the world.
Hence † Travailously adv. Obs. rare.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 439. Þei moten lyue, trewely, trauelously & perelously. Ibid. (1382), Bible, Pref. Epist. St. Jerome, i. Plato to … thilk brynk of Itali,… ful traueilousli ȝede. Ibid. (1382), Wisd. xv. 7. The crockere, the nesshe erthe threstende, trauailously [Vulg. laboriose], maketh to oure vses eche vessel.
