Moil (verb) (archaic)
moy-l
Work hard.
Move around in confusion or agitation.
Late Middle English (in the sense ‘moisten or bedaub’): from Old French moillier ‘paddle in mud, moisten’, based on Latin mollis ‘soft’. The sense ‘work’ dates from the mid 16th century, often in the phrase toil and moil.
Example sentences
“The men moiled hard in the mines.”
“The dancers moiled in the smoky haze of the club.”
Wonky (adj) won-kee Not straight or balanced, off kilter. First recorded in 1915–20; perhaps variant of dialectal wanky, equivalent to wank(le) ( Middle English wankel, Old English wancol. (more…)
