moil Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb work hard
    travail; dig; grind; labour; drudge; toil; labor; fag.
    • She was digging away at her math homework
    • Lexicographers drudge all day long
  2. verb be agitated
    churn; roil; boil.
    • the sea was churning in the storm
  3. verb moisten or soil
    • Her tears moiled the letter

WordNet

Moil transitive verb
Etymology
OE. moillen to wet, OF. moillier, muillier, F. mouller, fr. (assumed) LL. molliare, fr. L. mollis soft. See Mollify.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Moiled ; present participle & verbal noun Moiling
Definitions
  1. To daub; to make dirty; to soil; to defile.
    Thou ... doest thy mind in dirty pleasures moil. Spenser.
Moil intransitive verb
Etymology
From Moil to daub; prob. from the idea of struggling through the wet.
Definitions
  1. To soil one's self with severe labor; to work with painful effort; to labor; to toil; to drudge.
    Moil not too much under ground. Bacon.
    Now he must moil and drudge for one he loathes. Dryden.
Moil noun
Definitions
  1. A spot; a defilement.
    The moil of death upon them. Mrs. Browning.

Webster 1913