struggle
/ˈstɹʌɡəl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.62 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "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 Threlkeld."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: struglen, struyckelen, *strūkon, *strūkōną, *strug-, strúgr
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈstɹʌɡəl/
- British English: /ˈstɹʌɡəl/
Usage
Inflected Forms
struggles (plural)
stroggell (alternative, obsolete)
strogell (alternative, obsolete)
struggles (present, singular)
struggling (participle, present)
struggled (participle, past)
struggled (past)