struggle
n. C / Un. A very difficult effort or fight to do something. You can talk about a struggle when you have to try very hard to achieve something, often against problems or opposition.
n. A vigorous or determined effort made under difficult circumstances; a conflict or contest. Uncountable when referring to the general state of difficulty; countable when referring to specific instances of conflict or effort.
Learning a new language is a struggle.
After losing his job, paying the rent became a daily struggle for the family.
The novel portrays the protagonist's internal struggle between her personal ambitions and her sense of duty to her community.
From Middle English struglen, stroglen, strogelen, of obscure origin. Cognate with Scots strugil (“to struggle, grapple, contend”). 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”), 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”).
Commonly collocates with prepositions like 'for', 'against', 'with', or 'between' to specify the nature of the conflict.