travail
ponos denotes arduous labor in one passage and distress or pain in the Revelation passages.
The attested uses chiefly refer to distress or pain: Revelation 16:10 and Revelation 16:11 place genitive forms after "out from," while Revelation 21:4 names the nominative form among conditions that will cease. Colossians 4:13 applies the word to a person's extensive exertion for named communities.
Senses in use
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Distress or pain experienced and removed · dominant
In Revelation 16:10, the genitive singular occurs in the clause rendered "they chewed their tongues out from the travail," and Revelation 16:11 has the genitive plural in "out from their travails and out from their sores." In Revelation 21:4, the nominative singular appears in the declaration that neither "mourning nor crying nor pain shall be any more."
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Arduous effort on behalf of others · rare
In Colossians 4:13, the accusative singular occurs in the testimony that a man has much travail "for you" and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. The verse presents the term as substantial exertion directed toward those groups.
In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB renders the term with "travail" in Colossians 4:13 and Revelation 16:10, "travails" in Revelation 16:11, and "pain" in Revelation 21:4. These renderings confirm the clauses' overall presentation rather than establish separate lexical meanings.