Moil
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Hard work. countable, uncountable
"I finally decided, my heart was really in my singing rather than in the drab, hardy soul- searing toil and moil of a collier's existence."
- 2 The glass circling the tip of a blowpipe or punty, such as the residual glass after detaching a blown vessel, or the lower part of a gather. countable, uncountable
- 3 Confusion, turmoil. countable, uncountable
"Croft no longer saw anything clearly; he could not have said at that moment where his hands ended and the machine gun began; he was lost in a vast moil of noise out of which individual screams and shouts etched in his mind for an instant."
- 4 The excess material which adheres to the top, base, or rim of a glass object when it is cut or knocked off from a blowpipe or punty, or from the mold-filling process. Typically removed after annealing as part of the finishing process (e.g. scored and snapped off). countable, uncountable
- 5 A spot; a defilement. countable, uncountable
"You'd suppose A finished generation, dead of plague, Swept outward from their graves into the sun, The moil of death upon them."
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- 6 The metallic oxide from a blowpipe which has adhered to a glass object. countable, uncountable
- 1 To toil, to work hard.
"Moil not too much underground, for the hope of mines is very uncertain, and useth to make the planters lazy in other things.."
- 2 moisten or soil wordnet
- 3 To churn continually; to swirl. intransitive
"A crowd of men and women moiled like nightmare figures in the smoke-green haze."
- 4 be agitated wordnet
- 5 To defile or dirty. UK, transitive
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- 6 work hard wordnet
- 1 Synonym of Ngan'gityemerri.
Example
More examples"Moil not too much underground, for the hope of mines is very uncertain, and useth to make the planters lazy in other things.."
Etymology
From Middle English mollen (“to soften by wetting”), borrowed from Old French moillier with the same meaning, from Vulgar Latin *molliō, *molliare, from mollis (“soft”).
Of unclear origin; possibly from French meule or Hebrew מוהל (mohel, “ritual circumciser”), referring to the foreskin-like shape of the unwanted rim.
Related phrases
More for "moil"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.