labour
/ˈleɪbə
/(US labor)
noun [mass noun]
1Work, especially physical work: the price of repairs includes labour, parts, and VAT manual labour...
- The majority of migrant workers earn their living in the city by doing manual labour.
- The men go off and look for casual labour during the day while women and children spend the day looking for shade.
- These subjects were agricultural workers with varying periods of manual labour in the field.
Synonyms
work, toil, employment, exertion, industry, industriousness, toiling, hard work, hard labour, drudgery, effort, the sweat of one's brow, donkey work, menial work
informal slog, grind, sweat, elbow grease
British informal graft
archaic travail, moil
task, job, chore, undertaking, mission, commission, assignment
1.1Workers, especially manual workers, considered collectively: non-union casual labour...
- Today there is a growing acceptance of illegal casual labour and a strong demand for it.
- In this society, his job was one of the few, in which people exactly performed manual labor.
- It also aims to replace a number of full-time workers with casual and part-time labour.
Synonyms
workers, employees, workmen, workforce, staff, working people, blue-collar workers, hands, labourers, labour force, hired hands, proletariat, wage-earners, manpower, human resources, personnel
humorous liveware
1.2Workers considered as a social class or political force: [as modifier]: the labour movement...
- Fourth, the working class and labour movement, repressed, shackled, lacking independence, was no alternative.
- Steelworkers Canadian director Ken Neumann said the merger creates a new force in the Canadian labour movement, as well as in federal and provincial politics.
- But turning labour into a political force to be reckoned with in Alberta is a tall order, which McGowan clearly outlined in his paper.
1.3 [as modifier] (Labour) A government department concerned with a nation’s workforce: the Labour Secretary...
- This was announced at the end of last week by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.
2 (Labour) [treated as singular or plural] The Labour Party: [as modifier]: the Labour leader...
- They seem to think that the way to beat Labour is to be more Leftist than Labour!
- South Swindon has a new Member of Parliament but the seat is still held by Labour.
- Teresa Page was a hard-working councillor and Labour will be sad to see her go.
3The process of childbirth from the start of uterine contractions to delivery: a woman in labour...
- They also received 300 mg every three hours while in labor until delivery.
- Both Lamaze and Bradley encourage partner participation in labor and delivery.
- The drug prostaglandin is injected into the womb and this causes it to contract strongly as in labour.
Synonyms
childbirth, birth, birthing, delivery, nativity;
contractions, labour pains, labour pangs, labour throes
technical parturition
archaic confinement, accouchement, lying-in, childbed, travail
4 rare A group of moles: a labour of moles toils with the Earth...
- The labor of moles dig dexterously underground.
- The labour of moles has caused some messy practical problems for the grass cutters.
verb [no object]
1Work hard; make great effort: they laboured from dawn to dusk she was patiently labouring over her sketchbooks...
- At 51, she breathes with real difficulty, wheezing and labouring to draw breath as we talk.
- And like Mr Sherry, Mr Hillier has laboured for many years and has likewise produced three heavy volumes, the last of which is about to see the light of day in the bookshops.
- In this atmosphere, the House of Representatives has labored hard.
Synonyms
work (hard), toil, slave (away), grub away, plod away, grind away, sweat away, struggle, strive, exert oneself, overwork, work one's fingers to the bone, work like a Trojan/dog/slave, keep one's nose to the grindstone
informal slog away, kill oneself, plug away, put one's back into something, peg away
British informal graft
archaic drudge, travail, moil
1.1Work at an unskilled manual occupation: he was eking out an existence by labouring (as adjective labouring) the labouring classes...
- And she actively fought for the most dispossessed of that class, those who labored in the nation's fields.
- On Saturday, John Paul slept in his old bed, visited his old street and drove by the quarry, no longer used, where he laboured during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
- Forsaking the books, it was pick and shovel for a year of manual labouring for the young David.
1.2 [with object] archaic Till (the ground): the land belonged to him who laboured it
2Have difficulty in doing something despite working hard: United laboured against confident opponents...
- The home side struggled to overcome Edinburgh, but despite labouring for long periods the grit of the Irish forwards eventually saw them through.
- He was laden with a heavy old radio and was labouring to keep up.
- There had been a failure specifically to identify favourable material, but that was attributed to the difficulties under which the applicant has been labouring by reason of having been detained.
Synonyms
strive, struggle, endeavour, work, try hard, make every effort, do one's best, do one's utmost, do all one can, give (it/something) one's all, go all out, fight, push, be at pains, put oneself out, apply oneself, exert oneself
informal bend/fall/lean over backwards, give it one's best shot, pull out all the stops
2.1 [with adverbial of direction] Move or proceed with difficulty: they laboured up a steep, tortuous track...
- Our taxis, which had labored up the narrow, winding road, descended much more swiftly.
- She labored up to the stoop, red face partially hidden by brown paper bags.
- In the terrible heat, the fugitives labored up a tomb-lined slope toward Nuceria.
2.2(Of an engine) work noisily and with difficulty: the wheels churned, the engine labouring...
- He felt the engine laboring, gathering speed slowly, the breakdown lane narrowing rapidly ahead.
- She turned on her radar detector and slid up to a hundred and five, riding easily, her huge engine hardly laboring as she raced through the night.
- The engines labored to push the bulky ship off the side of the building and into the air.
2.3(Of a ship) roll or pitch heavily: (as adjective labouring) occasionally the labouring ship spat the caulking from some underwater seam...
- The waves were strong, The Heart of Isis laboured heavily and the men were tested sorely, but by nightfall they had cleared the island without finding safe harbor.
Phrases
a labour of Hercules
a labour of love
labour the point
Phrasal verbs
labour under
Origin
Middle English: from Old French labour (noun), labourer (verb), both from Latin labor 'toil, trouble'.
Labour came into English through French from Latin labor ‘toil, distress, trouble’, also found in laboratory (early 17th century) a place of work, and elaborate (late 16th century) ‘produced by much labour’. In the late 18th century the Scottish economist Adam Smith used the word technically for work directed towards providing the needs of a community, and paved the way for the use of labour in political contexts. The British Labour Party was formed in 1906 to represent ordinary working people. A task requiring enormous strength or effort is a labour of Hercules or a Herculean labour. In Greek mythology Hercules had superhuman strength and performed twelve tasks or ‘labours’ imposed on him as a penance for killing his children in a fit of madness. After his death he was ranked among the gods.