labour
Plurallabours (some meanings)
Verblabours, labouring, laboured
US spellinglabor
Plurallabours (some meanings)
Formslabours, labouring, laboured
- 1The effort, especially hard effort, that goes into a particular task or piece of work.
Years of labour went into restoring the old farmhouse.
The garage charged us for the parts and two hours of labour.
UsageUsually no a: hours of labour, parts and labour on a bill. The plural often means one person's efforts: rested from her labours.
Similarwork, effort, toil, exertion
Oppositerest, leisure, idleness
Note
Effort here is often something counted and paid for, as on a garage bill that lists parts and labour by the hour. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe gives the older picture of toil, a sandy rock "which yielded easily to the Labour I bestowed on it".
- 2Workers considered as a group, the workforce or working class, and sometimes specifically the organised labour movement.
The factory moved abroad in search of cheap labour.
Talks between management and labour broke down over the weekend.
UsageOften cheap labour or skilled labour, with no a. Management and labour means the two sides of industry.
Oppositemanagement, capital
- 3Short for the Labour Party.
Labour held the seat comfortably at the by-election.
She has voted Labour all her life.
UsageCapital L and usually no the: Labour won, she votes Labour, a Labour MP.
- 4The process by which a mother gives birth, or the period of time during which she does so.
She went into labour two weeks before her due date.
Her first labour lasted fourteen hours.
UsageA woman is in labour or goes into labour. Labour started with medical help is induced labour.
Similarchildbirth, delivery
Note
Doctors and midwives divide labour into stages, from the contractions that open the cervix, through the birth of the baby, to the delivery of the placenta.
- 5A political party or movement, in any country, that aims, or claims, to represent the interests of working people, thought of as an organisation rather than as the workers themselves.
The new coalition brought together labour and the liberal centre.
Across Europe, the early twentieth century saw labour emerge as a political force in its own right.
UsageLower case labour names the movement in general; a capital Labour names one particular party.
- 6To do hard work, especially steady physical effort over a long time.
Farmworkers labour in the fields from dawn until dusk at harvest time.
He laboured for years on a novel that was never published.
UsageSounds heavier than work, suggesting long, wearing effort. Often labour on a task or labour in a place.
Oppositerest, idle, relax, laze
Note
The verb has its own Latin source, laborare, which meant not only to work but to strive, to suffer and to be in distress. English kept those darker strands alongside plain toil, in struggling under a burden and giving birth.
- 7A task or undertaking that needs hard work and great effort to carry out.
Restoring the clock was a long labour, but she finished it in the end.
Compiling the parish records proved a labour of many years.
UsageCommon in a labour of love, hard work done for the pleasure of it, and rest from your labours.
Similartask, undertaking, job
Less common meanings
- 8To struggle: to suffer under difficulties or illness, to work in especially hard or tiring conditions, or to move slowly against resistance or under a load.
Nurses on the ward labour under huge pressure because of staff shortages.
The old lorry laboured up the steep hill in first gear.
UsageUsually labour under pressure or a burden. To labour under a misapprehension is to believe something wrongly.
Note
Struggle is the thread that joins a stone rolled uphill, a slow line of verse and an illness. Pope writes in An Essay on Criticism that "the line too labours, and the words move slow". With under, the verb names a burden someone carries: Scott speaks of "the disorder under which he laboured", and people still labour under a misapprehension or under pressure.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Alexander Pope wrote the quoted line in An Essay on Criticism. en.wikisource.org
- The quoted wording occurs in Walter Scott's narration in Kenilworth. gutenberg.org
- 9To go through the pains and effort of giving birth.
She laboured for eighteen hours before the baby arrived.
Women who choose to labour at home are supported by a midwife.
- 10To dwell on or keep stressing a point, as in a debate, at greater length than is needed.
I don't want to labour the point, but the report is due on Friday.
The minister laboured the point for twenty minutes while the chamber grew restless.
UsageNearly always labour the point, usually in the negative: I won't labour the point.
Similaroveremphasise
Note
Almost always heard in the fixed phrase labour the point, often in a polite apology such as I don't want to labour the point. Edward Carpenter, in Pagan and Christian Creeds (1920), says there is no need to labour a point that everyone already knows.
- 11Of a ship, to pitch or roll heavily, as in a rough sea.
The old trawler laboured in the heavy swell off the Scottish coast.
Overloaded ships labour badly when a gale blows up.
Note
The verb describes a vessel straining as it pitches and rolls, so that its hull and rigging are under heavy stress; a badly ballasted or badly trimmed ship labours more. William Gilpin's Memoirs of Josias Rogers (1808) shows what that meant aboard: the ship laboured so much and took in so much water "that we could neither eat, nor sleep dry".
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- A labouring vessel pitches or rolls heavily, endangering its structure. gutenberg.org
- William Gilpin authored Memoirs of Josias Rogers, published in 1808. en.wikipedia.org
- The cited passage describes the ship labouring and taking in water, with the quoted consequence. en.wiktionary.org
- 12The heavy pitching and tossing of a ship that puts strain on its timbers and rigging.
Note
A seafaring word, much rarer as a noun than as the verb for a straining ship, and found mainly in older writing about the sea, usually as the labour of a ship or of a vessel. Sailors today are more likely to say that a ship is labouring than to speak of its labour.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Labour has a nautical noun sense referring to a vessel's motion and resulting strain. en.wiktionary.org
- Labour also has a verb sense describing a ship pitching or rolling heavily. en.wiktionary.org
- 13A collective name for a group of moles.
Note
A collective noun of the same kind as a parliament of owls, used in the fixed phrase a labour of moles. It is uncommon, and most people simply say a group of moles. Moles spend most of their lives alone underground, so even naturalists seldom have a use for it; it belongs to word lists and quiz books more than to fieldwork.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Labour is a collective noun for moles, appearing in the phrase a labour of moles. en.wiktionary.org
- Parliament is a collective name for owls. parliament.uk
- Moles spend most of their lives underground and are generally solitary. mammal.org.uk
Showing meanings only.
Used only in American English, spelled labor: a Texas and Mexico unit of land.
Practice
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Origins
Middle English had it as labor or labour, taken from Old French labor (labeur in modern French) and from Latin labor, the word the French came from.
From Middle English labouren, from Old French laborer, from Latin laborare ("to labour, strive, exert oneself, suffer; to work out"), from labor ("toil, work, exertion"), perhaps remotely related to robur ("strength"). It replaced the native English word swink ("toil").
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- The verb labour comes from Middle English labouren, from Old French laborer, from Latin laborare. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin laborare means to labour, strive, exert oneself, suffer, and work out. alatius.com
- Latin laborare derives from labor. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin labor means toil, work, and exertion. en.wiktionary.org
- A remote relationship with Latin robur, meaning strength, has been proposed tentatively. en.wiktionary.org
- Labour displaced the native English word swink, meaning toil. en.wiktionary.org