source: Joeschmo's Gears and Grounds: May 2017

WORK, LABOR, TRAVAIL, TOIL, DRUDGERY, GRIND mean activity involving effort or exertion.

WORK may imply activity of body, of mind, of a machine, or of a natural force.

e.g. too tired to do any work

LABOR applies to physical or intellectual work involving great and often strenuous exertion.

e.g. farmers demanding fair compensation for their labor

TRAVAIL is bookish for labor involving pain or suffering.

e.g. years of travail were lost when the house burned

TOIL implies prolonged and fatiguing labor.

e.g. his lot would be years of back-breaking toil

DRUDGERY suggests dull and irksome labor.

e.g. an editorial job with a good deal of drudgery

GRIND implies labor exhausting to mind or body.

e.g. the grind of the assembly line

verb no object

work extremely hard or incessantly:

｟かたく｠ 〈人が〉 «…に» 精を出して［骨を折って］働く(away) «at, on, over»

e.g. we toiled away

e.g. with infinitive : Richard toiled to build his editorial team.

with adverbial of direction move slowly and with difficulty:

｟文｠ ; 〖～＋副詞〗 苦労して進む［移動する］ (!〖副詞〗は方向の表現)

e.g. she began to toil up the cliff path.

exhausting physical labor:

骨折り(仕事); 苦労 (!通例長期間の不愉快な仕事)

e.g. a life of toil.

toiler |ˈtoilər| noun

Middle English (in the senses ‘contend verbally’ and ‘strife’): from Anglo-Norman French toiler ‘strive, dispute’, toil ‘confusion’, from Latin tudiculare ‘stir about’, from tudicula ‘machine for crushing olives’, related to tundere ‘crush’.