Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Labor?

\La"bor\, 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. God hath set Labor and rest, as day and night, to men Successive. --Milton. 2. Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of compiling a history. 3. That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort. Being a labor of so great a difficulty, the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for. --Hooker. 4. Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth. The queen's in labor, They say, in great extremity; and feared She'll with the labor end. --Shak. 5. Any pang or distress. --Shak. 6. (Naut.) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging. 7. [Sp.] A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to an area of 1771/7 acres. --Bartlett. Syn: Work; toil; drudgery; task; exertion; effort; industry; painstaking. See {Toll}.
\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. Adam, well may we labor still to dress This garden. --Milton. 2. To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains. 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. The stone that labors up the hill. --Granville. The line too labors,and the words move slow. --Pope. To cure the disorder under which he labored. --Sir W. Scott. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. --Matt. xi. 28 4. To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth. 5. (Naut.) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea. -- Totten.
\La"bor\, v. t. [F. labourer, L. laborare.] 1. To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil. The most excellent lands are lying fallow, or only labored by children. --W. Tooke. 2. To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care. ``To labor arms for Troy.'' --Dryden. 3. To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge stre?uously; as, to labor a point or argument. 4. To belabor; to beat. [Obs.] --Dryden.
\La"bor\, n. (Mining.) A store or set of stopes. [Sp. Amer.]