labour

Alternative forms

• labor (US)

Etymology

From Middle English labouren, from Old French laborer, from Latin laborare (“(intransitive) to labor, strive, exert oneself, suffer, be in distress, (transitive) to work out, elaborate”), from labor (“labor, toil, work, exertion”); perhaps remotely akin to robur (“strength”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈleɪ.bə/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈleɪ.bɚ/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪbə(ɹ)

Noun

labour (countable and uncountable, plural labours) (British, Canadian, Australian spelling, New Zealand spelling)

1. Effort expended on a particular task; toil, work.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     […] so I set myself to enlarge my cave, and work farther into the earth; for it was a loose sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed on it […]

2. That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.
   • Richard Hooker (1554-1600)

     Being a labour of so great a difficulty, the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for.

3. (uncountable) Workers in general; the working class, the workforce; sometimes specifically the labour movement, organised labour.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 22, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.

4. (uncountable) A political party or force aiming or claiming to represent the interests of labour.
5. The act of a mother giving birth.
6. The time period during which a mother gives birth.
7. (nautical) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.
8. An old measure of land area in Mexico and Texas, approximately 177 acres.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bartlett to this entry?)

Verb

labour (third-person singular simple present labours, present participle labouring, simple past and past participle laboured) (British, Canadian, Australian spelling, New Zealand spelling)

1. (intransitive) To toil, to work.
2. (transitive) To belabour, to emphasise or expand upon (a point in a debate, etc).

   I think we've all got the idea. There's no need to labour the point.

3. To be oppressed with difficulties or disease; to do one's work under conditions which make it especially hard or wearisome; to move slowly, as against opposition, or under a burden.
   • Granville

     the stone that labours up the hill

   • Alexander Pope

     The line too labours, and the words move slow.

   • Sir Walter Scott

     to cure the disorder under which he laboured

4. To suffer the pangs of childbirth.
5. (nautical) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Totten to this entry?)

Further reading

• labour in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• labour in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• labour at OneLook Dictionary Search
• "labour" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 176.

Noun

labour

1. work, job

Etymology

Deverbal of labourer. See also labeur.

Noun

labour m (plural labours)

1. cultivation

Further reading

• “labour” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Noun

labour m (oblique plural labours, nominative singular labours, nominative plural labour)

1. (late Anglo-Norman) Alternative spelling of labur