Labor \La"bor\ (l[=a]"b[~e]r), n. [OE. labour, OF. labour,
laber, labur, F. labeur, L. labor; cf. Gr. lamba`nein to
take, Skr. labh to get, seize.] [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.
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God hath set
Labor and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive. --Milton.
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2. Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of
compiling a history.
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3. That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that
which demands effort.
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Being a labor of so great a difficulty, the exact
performance thereof we may rather wish than look
for. --Hooker.
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4. Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth.
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The queen's in labor,
They say, in great extremity; and feared
She'll with the labor end. --Shak.
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5. Any pang or distress. --Shak.
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6. (Naut.) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results
in the straining of timbers and rigging.
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7. [Sp.] A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to
an area of 1771/7 acres. --Bartlett.
8. (Mining.) A stope or set of stopes. [Sp. Amer.]
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Syn: Work; toil; drudgery; task; exertion; effort; industry;
painstaking. See Toll.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Labor \La"bor\, v. t. [F. labourer, L. laborare.]
1. To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil.
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The most excellent lands are lying fallow, or only
labored by children. --W. Tooke.
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2. To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care. "To
labor arms for Troy." --Dryden.
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3. To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge
strenuously; as, to labor a point or argument.
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4. To belabor; to beat. [Obs.] --Dryden.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Labor \La"bor\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Labored; p. pr. & vb. n.
Laboring.] [OE. labouren, F. labourer, L. laborare. See
Labor, n.] [Written also labour.]
1. To exert muscular strength; to exert one's strength with
painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to
work; to toil.
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Adam, well may we labor still to dress
This garden. --Milton.
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2. To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any
design; to strive; to take pains.
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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.
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The stone that labors up the hill. --Granville.
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The line too labors, and the words move slow.
--Pope.
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To cure the disorder under which he labored. --Sir
W. Scott.
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Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. --Matt. xi. 28
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4. To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be
in labor.
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5. (Naut.) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent
sea. --Totten.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
labor
n 1: productive work (especially physical work done for wages);
"his labor did not require a great deal of skill" [syn:
labour, toil]
2: a social class comprising those who do manual labor or work
for wages; "there is a shortage of skilled labor in this
field" [syn: labour, working class, proletariat]
3: concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of labor to
the birth of a child; "she was in labor for six hours"
[syn: parturiency, labour, confinement, lying-in,
travail, childbed]
4: an organized attempt by workers to improve their status by
united action especially via labor unions (especially the
leaders of this movement) [syn: labor movement, trade
union movement]
5: a political party formed in Great Britain in 1900;
characterized by the promotion of labor's interests and
the socialization of key industries [syn: Labour Party,
Labour, Labor Party]
6: the federal department responsible for promoting the working
conditions of wage earners in the United States; created
in 1913 [syn: Department of Labor, Labor Department, DoL]
7: any piece of work that is undertaken or attempted; "he
prepared for great undertakings" [syn: undertaking, project,
task]
v 1: strive and make an effort to reach a goal; "She tugged for
years to make a decent living"; "We have to push a
little to make the deadline!"; "She is driving away at
her doctoral thesis" [syn: tug, labour, push, drive]
2: work hard; "She was digging away at her math homework";
"Lexicographers drudge all day long" [syn: labour, toil,
fag, travail, grind, drudge, dig, moil]
3: undergo the efforts of childbirth [syn: labour]
WordNet (r) 2.0
206 Moby Thesaurus words for "labor":
accouchement, activities, activity, affair, affairs, aim,
always trot out, amplify, assignment, bag, be busy, be confined,
be determined, be employed, bear, bear a child, bear young,
belabor, birth, birth throes, birthing, blessed event, blunder,
business, busywork, calve, careen, career, carry on business, cast,
char, chare, charge, childbearing, childbed, childbirth, chore,
commerce, commission, complete, concern, concernment, confinement,
cultivate, delivery, detail, dirty work, do business, do chars,
do the chores, donkeywork, dress, drive, drop, drudge, drudgery,
duty, dwell on, dwell upon, effort, elaborate, employ, employees,
employment, endeavor, endure, enlarge, enlarge upon,
enter into detail, enterprise, errand, exercise, exertion, expand,
fag, falter, farrow, fatigue, fawn, fish to fry, flounce, flounder,
foal, follow a trade, function, genesis, give birth, giving birth,
go into, grind, hammer away at, handiwork, handwork, hard work,
harp on, hatching, have, have a baby, have a job, have young,
having a baby, homework, industry, insist upon, interest, job,
job of work, keep up, kitten, labor under, laborers, laboriousness,
lamb, lick, lick of work, lie in, litter, lookout, lurch,
make-work, manual labor, matter, matters in hand, mission, moil,
moonlight, multiparity, nascency, nativity, occupation, odd job,
overdo, overemphasize, overstress, pains, parturition,
piece of work, pitch, pitch and plunge, plunge,
practice a profession, project, pup, rat race, reel, resolve, rock,
roll, scut work, seek, seethe, service, set up shop, slave,
slavery, slogging, spadework, spell out, stagger, stay employed,
stint, strain, strive, stroke, stroke of work, struggle, study,
stumble, suffer, sway, sweat, sweat blood, swing, swot, task, tend,
the Nativity, the stork, thing, things to do, thrash about,
thresh over, throw, tiresome work, toil, toss, toss and tumble,
toss and turn, totter, transact business, travail, treadmill, tug,
tumble, turn a hand, undertaking, wallop, wallow, welter, whelp,
work, work at, work for, work out, workers, yean
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
LABOR. Continued operation; work.
2. The labor and skill of one man is frequently used in a partnership,
and valued as equal to the capital of another.
3. When business has been done for another, and suit is brought to
recover a just reward, there is generally contained in the declaration, a
count for work and labor.
4. Where penitentiaries exist, persons who have committed crimes are
condemned to be imprisoned therein at labor.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
LABOR, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993)
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