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Labor   /lˈeɪbər/   Listen
noun
Labor  n.  (Written also labour)  
1.
Physical toil or bodily exertion, especially when fatiguing, irksome, or unavoidable, in distinction from sportive exercise; hard, muscular effort directed to some useful end, as agriculture, manufactures, and like; servile toil; exertion; work. "God hath set Labor and rest, as day and night, to men Successive."
2.
Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of compiling a history.
3.
That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort. "Being a labor of so great a difficulty, the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for."
4.
Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth. "The queen's in labor, They say, in great extremity; and feared She'll with the labor end."
5.
Any pang or distress.
6.
(Naut.) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.
7.
A measure of land in Mexico and Texas.
8.
(Mining.) A stope or set of stopes. (Sp. Amer.)
Synonyms: Work; toil; drudgery; task; exertion; effort; industry; painstaking. See Toll.


verb
Labor  v. t.  
1.
To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil. "The most excellent lands are lying fallow, or only labored by children."
2.
To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care. "To labor arms for Troy."
3.
To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge strenuously; as, to labor a point or argument.
4.
To belabor; to beat. (Obs.)


Labor  v. i.  (past & past part. labored; pres. part. laboring)  (Written also labour)  
1.
To exert muscular strength; to exert one's strength with painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to work; to toil. "Adam, well may we labor still to dress This garden."
2.
To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains.
3.
To be oppressed with difficulties or disease; to do one's work under conditions which make it especially hard, wearisome; to move slowly, as against opposition, or under a burden; to be burdened; often with under, and formerly with of. "The stone that labors up the hill." "The line too labors, and the words move slow." "To cure the disorder under which he labored." "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
4.
To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be in labor.
5.
(Naut.) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Labor" Quotes from Famous Books



... to the chambers which contained the most interesting fragments of pottery, sat and looked at them for a while. Some of them were beautifully decorated. This care, expended upon vessels that could not hold food or water any better for the additional labor put upon them, made her heart go out to those ancient potters. They had not only expressed their desire, but they had expressed it as beautifully as they could. Food, fire, water, and something else—even here, in this crack in the world, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... that he should most gladly, to the utmost of his ability, labor incessantly for his guest and relative, but must insist that he should be left to do so of his own free will, without reference to any pecuniary compensation, and out of the high regard in which he held his friend ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... pausing to learn whether any investigations have already been made. In matters of mechanical invention attempts are continually making to achieve what investigation has proved impossible, and a great deal of labor and money are wasted in finding by costly experience what is already known, and might have been learned by an hour's ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... engineer and organizer of untiring energy and illimitable patience could have performed so herculean a labor. Balthazar was all this, and more. He knew how to rule men despotically yet secure their love. The Indians did his bidding without hesitation and wrought for him without pay. In the absence of this quality his task ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... died in her labor, giving birth to two eggs," the sun and moon. "From these emerged the two brothers, Apocatequil ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly


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