English▸ noun
1 work, especially hard physical work:
the price of repairs includes labor and parts
manual labor.
▪ workers, especially manual workers, considered collectively:
nonunion casual labor.
▪ manual workers considered as a social class or political force:
[as modifier] the labor movement.
2 (Labour) [treated as singular or plural] (in the UK or Canada) the Labour Party:
[as modifier] the Labour leader.
3 the process of childbirth, especially the period from the start of uterine contractions to delivery:
his wife is in labor.
▸ verb [no object]
1 work hard; make great effort:
they labored from dawn to dusk
she was patiently laboring over her sketchbooks.
▪ work at an unskilled manual occupation:
he was eking out an existence by laboring.
▪ [with object] archaic till (the ground):
the land belonged to him who labored it.
2 have difficulty in doing something despite working hard:
Coley labored against confident opponents.
▪ [with adverbial of direction] move or proceed with difficulty:
they labored up a steep, tortuous track.
▪ (of an engine) work noisily and with difficulty:
the wheels churned, the engine laboring.
▪ (of a ship) roll or pitch heavily:
the seas ran high, and the ship labored hard.
– PHRASES
labor of Hercules
each of the twelve very difficult tasks imposed on the Greek mythological hero Hercules (or Heracles). See Hercules.
a task done for pleasure, not reward:
explain or discuss something at excessive or unnecessary length.
labor of Hercules
each of the twelve very difficult tasks imposed on the Greek mythological hero Hercules (or Heracles). See Hercules.
▪ a very difficult task:
labor of love they face a labor of Hercules to clear the weeds.
a task done for pleasure, not reward:
he spent eight years rebuilding the house—a labor of love.
labor the point explain or discuss something at excessive or unnecessary length.
– ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French labour (noun), labourer (verb), both from Latin labor ‘toil, trouble’.