WordWeb Online

1. Engaged in a struggle to overcome especially poverty or obscurity
   "a financially struggling theatre"; "struggling artists"

1. Make a strenuous or laboured effort
   "She struggled for years to survive without welfare"
   - fight
    
2. To exert strenuous effort against opposition
   "he struggled to get free from the rope"
    
3. Climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling
   - clamber, scramble, shin, shinny [N. Amer], skin, sputter
    
4. Be engaged in a fight; carry on a fight
   - contend, fight

See also: struggler, troubled

Type of: assay, attempt, climb, endeavor [US], endeavour [Brit, Cdn], essay, seek, strive, try

Encyclopedia: Struggle