Synonyms: work, labor, toil1, drudgery, travail

These nouns refer to physical or mental effort expended to produce or accomplish something. 

• Work is the most widely applicable:
  ... "Which of us ... is to do the hard and dirty work for the restand for what pay?" (John Ruskin).
  ... "A work that aspires ... to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line" (Joseph Conrad). 
• Labor usually implies human work, especially of a hard physical or intellectual nature:
  ... "garner the fruits of their own labors" (Roger Casement). 
• Toil applies principally to strenuous, fatiguing labor:
  ... "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" (Winston S. Churchill). 
• Drudgery suggests dull, wearisome, or monotonous work:
  ... "the drudgery of penning definitions and marking quotations for transcription" (Thomas Macaulay). 
• Travail connotes arduous work involving pain or suffering:
  ... "prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth" (Henry Beston).

.... http://www.thefreedictionary.com/work