Etymograph

English

struggle

Struggle comes from Middle English struglen.

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500struglen1
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1879struggle1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English struggle
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1879, Richard Jefferies, London: Smith: “Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded…”.

Lineage

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500struglenWiktionary, English struggle
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1879struggleWiktionary, English struggle. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1879, Richard Jefferies, London: Smith: “Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded…”

The story

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’).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Middle English struglen

Today it means

noun A contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “struggle”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Middle English struglen / struggle

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