GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English

last match results

Found 3 definitions

1.       
   Labor , n. [OE. labour, OF. labour, laber, labur, F. labeur, L. labor; cf. Gr. λαμβάνειν to take, Skr. labh to get, seize.] [Written also labour.]
   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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   Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of compiling a history.
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   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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   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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   Any pang or distress.
   Shak.
   
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   (Naut.) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.
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   [Sp.] A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to an area of 177⅐ acres.
   Bartlett.
   (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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2.       
   Labor, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Labored ; p. pr. & vb. n. Laboring.] [OE. labouren, F. labourer, L. laborare. See Labor, n.] [Written also labour.]
   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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   To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains.
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   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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   To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be in labor.
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   (Naut.) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.
   Totten.
   
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3.       
   Labor, v. t. [F. labourer, L. laborare.]
   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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   To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care. “To labor arms for Troy.”
   Dryden.
   
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   To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge strenuously; as, to labor a point or argument.
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   To belabor; to beat. [Obs.]
   Dryden.
   
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