English Online Dictionary. What means struggle? What does struggle mean?
English
Alternative forms
- stroggell, strogell (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English struglen, stroglen, strogelen, of obscure origin. Cognate with Scots strugil (“to struggle, grapple, contend”). 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”), 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”).
Pronunciation
- (UK, US) IPA(key): /ˈstrʌɡəl/, [ˈstɹʌɡl̩]
- Hyphenation: strug‧gle
- Rhymes: -ʌɡəl
Noun
struggle (plural struggles)
- A contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.
- (figurative) Strife, contention, great effort.
Derived terms
Translations
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.
- To have difficulty with something.
- To strive, or to make efforts, with a twisting, or with contortions of the body.
Usage notes
- This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive. See Appendix:English catenative verbs
Derived terms
Translations
Anagrams
- gurglets