struggle
Syllables: strug·gle/ˈstɹʌɡəl/
struggle noun: a contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.
Noun
struggle (plural struggles)
- A contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.
- Strife, contention, great effort.
- The struggle with ways and means had recommenced, more difficult now a hundredfold than it had been before, because of their increasing needs. Their income disappeared as a little rivulet that is swallowed by the thirsty ground. He worked night and day to supplement it.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- R. Moskowitz charges cisgender readers to be as conscious and deliberate with our religious identities as transgender and gender non-conforming people are with theirs, arguing that holiness is only achieved through continuous and unrelenting struggle and change.2019, Rachel Timoner, “Book Review: Textual Activism by Rabbi Mike Moskowitz”, in Tikkun
Verb
struggle (third-person singular simple present struggles, present participle struggling, simple past and past participle struggled)
- To strive, to labour in difficulty, to fight (for or against), to contend.
- During the centuries, the people of Ireland struggled constantly to assert their right to govern themselves.
- Troutbeck is a tiny village midway between Penrith and Keswick in a very sparsely populated part of Cumberland, and it used to be said by facetious travellers that the reason why it ever had a station at all was to give the engine a rest after it had struggled up the long and trying incline from...1951 October, “Notes and News: The Harmonium at Troutbeck”, in Railway Magazine, page 709
- Synonyms:
- agonize
- To have difficulty with something.
- One of the doctor’s patients struggled with depression.
- Then our first effort must be to identify the actual words. Only after recognizing them individually can we begin to try to understand them, to struggle with perceiving what they mean.1972, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 17
- To strive, or to make efforts, with a twisting, or with contortions of the body.
- She struggled to escape from her assailant's grasp.
- Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC
struggle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
struggle in Hindi
- strife, effort
- संघर्ष saṅgharṣ, लड़ाई laṛāī
- to strive, to labour in difficulty, to fight
- जूझना jūjhnā
struggle in Tamil
- strife, effort
- போராட்டம் pōrāṭṭam
struggle in Marathi
- संघर्ष
struggle in Urdu
- struggle; strife
- کشمکش kaśmakaś
- struggle
- سنگھرش saṅgharś
- to struggle
- لڑنا laṛnā
- struggle, effort
- دوڑ dauṛ
More languagesFewer languages
- struggle in Bengali
- সংগ্রাম, বিবাদ, প্রতিদ্বন্দ্বিতা, কুশ্তি লড়া
- struggle in Telugu
- పోరాటం pōrāṭaṁ
- struggle in Malayalam
- പോരാട്ടം pōrāṭṭaṁ
- struggle in Kannada
- ಹೋರಾಟ, ಒದ್ದಾಟ, ಹೆಣಗಾಟ, ತೀವ್ರಪ್ರಯತ್ನ
- struggle in Punjabi
- لڑنا laṛnā
- struggle in Gujarati
- સંઘર્ષ saṅgharṣ
- struggle in Odia
- ସଂଘର୍ଷ
- struggle in Sanskrit
- व्यायम् vyāyam
- struggle in Nepali
- सङ्घर्ष
- struggle in Arabic
- كِفَاح kifāḥ, نِضَال niḍāl, جِهَاد jihād, مُبَارَزَة mubāraza
- struggle in Indonesian
- ulet, kerja keras
- struggle in Persian
- پیکار peykâr, مبارزه mobâreze, چخیدن čaxidan
- struggle in Thai
- การดิ้นรน gaan-dîn-ron, ดิ้นรน dîn-ron
- struggle in Vietnamese
- đấu tranh
- struggle in Myanmar
- တိုက်ပွဲ tuikpwai:
Examples of struggle in a sentence
- England were ponderous with ball in hand, their runners static when taking the ball and their lines obvious, while their front row struggled badly in the scrum.2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport:
- Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:
- Most train operators have reduced services with emergency timetables, as they struggle to cope with a rapid increase in staff absences due to the Omicron variant of COVID.2022 January 12, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Emergency timetables as absences surge due to COVID”, in RAIL, number 948, page 6:
Synonyms of struggle
Forms of struggle
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | struggles |
| alternative form (obsolete) | stroggell |
| alternative form (obsolete) | strogell |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | struggles |
| present participle | struggling |
| past participle | struggled |
| past | struggled |
Origin of struggle
From Middle English struglen, stroglen, strogelen, of obscure origin; perhaps from a variant of *strokelen, *stroukelen (> English stroll), from Middle Dutch struyckelen ("to stumble, trip, falter"; > Modern Dutch struikelen), the frequentative form of Old Dutch *strūkon (“to stumble”), from Proto-Germanic *strūkōną, *strūkēną (“to be stiff”), from Proto-Indo-European *strug-, *ster- (“to be stiff; to bristle, strut, stumble, fall”), Cognate with Scots strugil (“to struggle, grapple, contend”). Also related to Middle Low German strûkelen ("to stumble"; > Low German strükeln), Old High German strūhhēn, strūhhōn ("to stumble, trip, tumble, go astray"; > German strauchen, straucheln). Alternative etymology derives the base of struggle from Old Norse strúgr (“arrogance, pride, spitefulness, ill-will”) + -le (frequentative suffix), from Proto-Germanic *strūkaz (“stiff, rigid”), ultimately from the same Proto-Indo-European root above, which would make it cognate with dialectal Swedish strug (“contention, strife, discord”), Norwegian stru (“obstinate, unruly”), Danish struende (“reluctantly”), Scots strug (“difficulty, perplexity, a laborious task”).
Words formed from struggle
Phrases with struggle
Words that rhyme with struggle
Questions about struggle
- What does struggle mean?
- Struggle means a contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.
- What is struggle in Hindi?
- Struggle in Hindi is संघर्ष (saṅgharṣ), लड़ाई (laṛāī), जूझना (jūjhnā). See Struggle meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use struggle in a sentence?
- England were ponderous with ball in hand, their runners static when taking the ball and their lines obvious, while their front row struggled badly in the scrum.
- What part of speech is struggle?
- Struggle can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce struggle?
- Struggle is pronounced /ˈstɹʌɡəl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of struggle?
- The plural of struggle is struggles.
Words near struggle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: struggle (page history and authors); struggle (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); دوڑ (Urdu) (page history and authors); struggle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); struggle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); لڑنا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); સંઘર્ષ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); struggle (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); व्यायम् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); struggle (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-struggle.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-struggle.wav.
Cite this entry: “struggle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/struggle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.