a. [f. TOIL sb.1] Full of toil.
1. Of an agent or his actions: Characterized by toiling; laboring; hard-working.
1596. Spenser, Hymn Heavenly Love, 227. Betweene the toylefull Oxe and humble Asse.
a. 1789. Mickle, Liberty, xvii. The fruitful lawns confess his toilful care.
1832. W. Irving, Alhambra, I. 70. We behold the patient train of the toilful muleteer, slowly moving along the skirts of the mountain. Ibid. (1839–40), Wolfert’s R., Mountjoy (1855), 33. The wildflowers were no longer … the resorts of the toilful bee.
1887. Blackie, in Blackw. Mag., Oct., 536. The toilful monks of Croyland Clave the clod.
2. Of an action, condition, etc.: = TOILSOME 1.
1614. Sylvester, Bethulia’s Rescue, IV. 432. Hee … that In Toil-full Fears will his own death procure.
1621. T. Williamson, trans. Goulart’s Wise Vieillard, 105. Long trauell, tyrings, and toylefull labours.
1847. W. Irving, in Life, IV. 11. This has been a toilful year to me.
1859. Farrar, J. Home, 96. Climbing with toilful progress some steep and rocky hill.
Hence Toilfully adv., in a toilful manner.
1832. trans. Tour Germ. Prince, II. vii. 124. A white footpath winded along toilfully through the brown heather.
1860. Farrar, Orig. Lang., i. 3. We toilfully examine the unburied monuments of extinct nations.
1882. E. Arnold, Pearls of Faith (1883), 144. There through toilfully, with steps of pain Went an old Jew.
