struggle

UK/ˈstɹʌɡəl/US/ˈstɹʌɡəl/

verbB22 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,017 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: struggled, struggles, struggling

To struggle is to fight hard against something difficult, often while losing. The effort shows, and it is not going well.

That hint of losing is what makes the word honest, since somebody struggling is trying and not yet succeeding. It takes with, against or to and a verb. As a noun it covers everything from a physical fight to a political movement, so a power struggle and the struggle for independence are both standard. There is also a plain physical sense, since somebody held down struggles to get free.

Definitions of struggle

1verbstruggleTo make a great effort against difficulty.B2
“She struggled to keep her eyes open.”
2nounhardA hard fight or effort.B2
“It was a struggle to get the money together.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

Where it comes from

The origin is obscure and the best guess is stumbling. Middle Dutch struyckelen meant to stumble or falter, from a root about stiffness, so to struggle was to keep tripping over.

Proto-Indo-European
*strug-
Proto-Germanic
*strūkōną
Old Dutch
*strūkon — to stumble
Middle Dutch
struyckelen
Middle English
struglen
English, today
struggle

Built from

*strūkēną · Proto-Germanic — to be stiff
*ster- · Proto-Indo-European — to be stiff; to bristle, strut, stumble, fall

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, 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”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 1 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

struggle in the wild

Inside Health is a British radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 discussing topical health issues which people struggle to understand.
Inside Health
Founded on 23 June 1949, it played a vital role in the country's struggle for independence.
Awami League
However after the election a "bitter power struggle" emerged which resulted in the "virtual collapse" of the party in Western Australia.
Grey Power
Our Generation is a 2010 Australian documentary film about the struggle of Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory to retain their land, culture and freedom.
Our Generation (film)
Quite a lively struggle ended with the victory of the first team with a score of 3:1.
FC Zorky Krasnogorsk (men)

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

← Vocabulary