labor
1 of 3noun
la·bor ˈlā-bər 
1
a
: expenditure of physical or mental effort especially when difficult or compulsory
was sentenced to six months at hard labor
b(1)
: the services performed by workers for wages as distinguished from those rendered by entrepreneurs for profits
(2)
: human activity that provides the goods or services in an economy
Industry needs labor for production.
c
: the physical activities (such as dilation of the cervix and contraction of the uterus) involved in giving birth
also : the period of such labor
2
a
: an economic group comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages
wants the vote of labor in the elections
b
: the organizations or officials representing groups of workers
negotiations between labor and management
c(1)
: workers employed in an establishment
(2)
: workers available for employment
Immigrants provided a source of cheap labor.
3
usually Labour : the Labour party of the United Kingdom or of another part of the Commonwealth of Nations
4
: an act or process requiring labor : task
The three-month project evolved into a year-long labor.
5
: a product of labor
The flood destroyed the labor of years.
labor
2 of 3verb
labored; laboring ˈlā-b(ə-)riŋ
intransitive verb
1
: to exert one's powers of body or mind especially with painful or strenuous effort : work
2
: to move with great effort
the truck labored up the hill
3
: to suffer from some disadvantage or distress
labor under a delusion
4
: to be in the labor of giving birth
5
of a ship : to pitch or roll heavily
transitive verb
1
: to treat or work out in often laborious detail
labor the obvious
2
: distress, burden
3
: to cause to labor
4
archaic
a
: to spend labor on or produce by labor
b
: to strive to effect or achieve
labor
3 of 3adjective
1
: of or relating to labor
2
capitalized : of, relating to, or constituting a political party held to represent the interests of workers or made up largely of organized labor groups
Synonyms
Noun
- bear
- beast
- chore
- headache
- job
- killer
Verb
- bang away
- beaver (away)
- dig (away)
- drudge
- endeavor
- fag
- grub
- hump
- hustle
- moil
- peg (away)
- plod
- plow
- plug
- slave
- slog
- strain
- strive
- struggle
- sweat
- toil
- travail
- tug
- work
See all Synonyms & Antonyms 
Example Sentences
Noun A day's labor should get the job done. Getting the job done will require many hours of difficult labor. He rested from his labors. The cost of repairing the car includes parts and labor. an area in which there is a shortage of cheap labor The proposed new law is opposed by organized labor. She went into labor this morning. She has been in labor for several hours. She began to have labor pains this morning. She had a difficult labor. Verb Workers labored in the vineyard. He labored for several years as a miner. She has labored in vain to convince them to accept her proposal. We should honor those who labored so long to make the truth known. The truck labored up the hill. I have been laboring through this book for months. She has a tendency to labor the obvious. See More
Recent Examples on the Web
Milton Ezrati, Forbes, 19 Feb. 2023 Legacy officials plan to redirect patients, including those in labor, to its Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in North Portland. —oregonlive, 18 Feb. 2023 But when the mission's land is transferred from Spain to Portugal, the Portuguese government attempts to capture the native people for labor, prompting Gabriel and Mendoza to defend themselves — and their people — from certain annihilation. —Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 17 Feb. 2023 My years of experience in the labor movement and in public life has taught me that the job is never about me. —Kathryn Watson, CBS News, 16 Feb. 2023 The announcement about Tesla workers attempting to unionize comes after a slew of unionization efforts shaped the U.S. labor movement in 2021 and 2022. —Prarthana Prakash, Fortune, 15 Feb. 2023 Last year, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Van Jefferson's wife went into labor during the game against the Cincinnati Bengals. —Rob Wile, NBC News, 13 Feb. 2023 Just ahead of the game on Sunday, February 12, Hardman took to Twitter to announce that his girlfriend, Chariah Gordon, was going into labor. —Hanna Lustig, Glamour, 12 Feb. 2023 Its priorities include child cash benefits, wage subsidies and even reviving the labor movement. —Dana Goldstein, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Feb. 2023 Tribune News Service, oregonlive, 21 Aug. 2022 One such person, a teen-ager named Borys Romanchenko, was sent from Ukraine to labor in a German coal mine, before being interned in the concentration camps in Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. —Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2023 Gelatin desserts were for the elite who had cooks and servants to labor through the elaborate and time-consuming process of making gelatin, often extracted from the feet of calves or other animal parts. —John General, CNN, 19 Nov. 2022 Will labor strife led by pilots become the airline industry’s next big obstacle? —Dallas News, 27 Dec. 2022 In our own local space-time continuum, a number of companies labor to make wireless power possible using a host of technologies, but there are two strategies that show a lot of promise, one using lasers, another using magnetic resonance. —Eric Wolff, Discover Magazine, 1 Nov. 2010 In addition, given that farm owners usually provide meals for those who labor in their fields all day, zhu households also were mostly excluded from trading workers with non-zhu households. —Charles Choi, Discover Magazine, 8 Jan. 2018 Workers who labor 55-hour weeks are a third more likely to suffer a stroke than those working fewer than forty hours. —Bryan Robinson, Forbes, 1 June 2022 That may not be welcome news to the photographers and digital artists who labor to create the images that trained DALL-E and must now compete with the fruits of that training. —Kevin Kelleher, Fortune, 25 Oct. 2022 Breanne Deppisch, Washington Examiner, 12 Jan. 2023 Wurst was dismayed—at Biden, whose pro-labor oath seemed disingenuous, and at Marty Walsh, the Secretary of Labor, whose past work as a union president in Massachusetts made his betrayal all the more personal. —E. Tammy Kim, The New Yorker, 27 Dec. 2022 Still, Senate Democrats would be well-advised to demonstrate enthusiastic support for the sick-leave bill, because Republicans are scrambling to position themselves as more pro-labor on this issue than Democrats. —Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 1 Dec. 2022 Siding with the bosses to deny workers paid sick leave and prevent a strike is not pro-labor. —Toluse Olorunnipa, Washington Post, 29 Nov. 2022 But Biden chose the fourth and absolute worst option, compromising his credibility as a pro-labor president. —Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 1 Dec. 2022 Railroad unions on Tuesday slammed President Joe Biden's call for Congress to intervene in their contract dispute, saying the move undercuts their efforts to improve working conditions and Mr. Biden's claim to be a pro-labor leader. —CBS News, 29 Nov. 2022 Abruzzo is also Biden’s best chance at achieving his goal to be the most pro-labor president in US history. —Lauren Kaori Gurley, Washington Post, 15 Oct. 2022 Perhaps for this reason, some Democrats in the Midwest have been campaigning on a combination of a familiar pro-labor approach to the economy with a much more overt social progressivism, such as Senator Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, and Fetterman. —Benjamin Wallace-wells, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2022 See More
Noun
The nation’s demographic need will add to opportunities for AI and robotics, as a substitute for short labor and by enabling older Americans to work longer by reducing the physical demands of work. —Milton Ezrati, Forbes, 19 Feb. 2023 Legacy officials plan to redirect patients, including those in labor, to its Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in North Portland. —oregonlive, 18 Feb. 2023 But when the mission's land is transferred from Spain to Portugal, the Portuguese government attempts to capture the native people for labor, prompting Gabriel and Mendoza to defend themselves — and their people — from certain annihilation. —Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 17 Feb. 2023 My years of experience in the labor movement and in public life has taught me that the job is never about me. —Kathryn Watson, CBS News, 16 Feb. 2023 The announcement about Tesla workers attempting to unionize comes after a slew of unionization efforts shaped the U.S. labor movement in 2021 and 2022. —Prarthana Prakash, Fortune, 15 Feb. 2023 Last year, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Van Jefferson's wife went into labor during the game against the Cincinnati Bengals. —Rob Wile, NBC News, 13 Feb. 2023 Just ahead of the game on Sunday, February 12, Hardman took to Twitter to announce that his girlfriend, Chariah Gordon, was going into labor. —Hanna Lustig, Glamour, 12 Feb. 2023 Its priorities include child cash benefits, wage subsidies and even reviving the labor movement. —Dana Goldstein, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Feb. 2023 Verb
Beyond the West Coast, though, there are limited safety rules for workers facing extreme heat, even as climate change has worsened conditions for many people who labor outdoors. —Tribune News Service, oregonlive, 21 Aug. 2022 One such person, a teen-ager named Borys Romanchenko, was sent from Ukraine to labor in a German coal mine, before being interned in the concentration camps in Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. —Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2023 Gelatin desserts were for the elite who had cooks and servants to labor through the elaborate and time-consuming process of making gelatin, often extracted from the feet of calves or other animal parts. —John General, CNN, 19 Nov. 2022 Will labor strife led by pilots become the airline industry’s next big obstacle? —Dallas News, 27 Dec. 2022 In our own local space-time continuum, a number of companies labor to make wireless power possible using a host of technologies, but there are two strategies that show a lot of promise, one using lasers, another using magnetic resonance. —Eric Wolff, Discover Magazine, 1 Nov. 2010 In addition, given that farm owners usually provide meals for those who labor in their fields all day, zhu households also were mostly excluded from trading workers with non-zhu households. —Charles Choi, Discover Magazine, 8 Jan. 2018 Workers who labor 55-hour weeks are a third more likely to suffer a stroke than those working fewer than forty hours. —Bryan Robinson, Forbes, 1 June 2022 That may not be welcome news to the photographers and digital artists who labor to create the images that trained DALL-E and must now compete with the fruits of that training. —Kevin Kelleher, Fortune, 25 Oct. 2022 Adjective
The older Trumka was a close and powerful ally of Democrats in Washington who sought to advance pro-labor laws and regulations as private-sector union membership declined over the course of the 2000s. —Breanne Deppisch, Washington Examiner, 12 Jan. 2023 Wurst was dismayed—at Biden, whose pro-labor oath seemed disingenuous, and at Marty Walsh, the Secretary of Labor, whose past work as a union president in Massachusetts made his betrayal all the more personal. —E. Tammy Kim, The New Yorker, 27 Dec. 2022 Still, Senate Democrats would be well-advised to demonstrate enthusiastic support for the sick-leave bill, because Republicans are scrambling to position themselves as more pro-labor on this issue than Democrats. —Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 1 Dec. 2022 Siding with the bosses to deny workers paid sick leave and prevent a strike is not pro-labor. —Toluse Olorunnipa, Washington Post, 29 Nov. 2022 But Biden chose the fourth and absolute worst option, compromising his credibility as a pro-labor president. —Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 1 Dec. 2022 Railroad unions on Tuesday slammed President Joe Biden's call for Congress to intervene in their contract dispute, saying the move undercuts their efforts to improve working conditions and Mr. Biden's claim to be a pro-labor leader. —CBS News, 29 Nov. 2022 Abruzzo is also Biden’s best chance at achieving his goal to be the most pro-labor president in US history. —Lauren Kaori Gurley, Washington Post, 15 Oct. 2022 Perhaps for this reason, some Democrats in the Midwest have been campaigning on a combination of a familiar pro-labor approach to the economy with a much more overt social progressivism, such as Senator Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, and Fetterman. —Benjamin Wallace-wells, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2022 See More Word History
Etymology
Noun, Verb, and Adjective
Middle English, from Anglo-French labur, from Latin labor; perhaps akin to Latin labare to totter, labi to slip — more at sleep
First Known Use
Noun
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Verb
14th century, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense 1
Adjective
1526, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Phrases Containing labor
Kids Definition
labor
1 of 2 noun la·bor ˈlā-bər
1
: physical or mental effort especially when hard or required : toil, work
2
a
: the services performed by workers for wages
b
: those who do labor for wages
3
: the physical efforts and pain of giving birth
also : the period of such labor
4
: something that requires work : task
labor
2 of 2 verb labored; laboring -b(ə-)riŋ
1
: to work hard
2
: to move with great effort
the truck labored up the hill
Medical Definition
labor
1 of 2 noun la·bor
variants or British labour
ˈlā-bər
: the physical activities involved in childbirth consisting essentially of a prolonged series of involuntary contractions of the uterine musculature together with both reflex and voluntary contractions of the abdominal wall
drugs that induce labor
went into labor after a fall
also : the period of time during which such labor takes place
labor
2 of 2 intransitive verb variants or British labour
: to be in the labor of giving birth
labor 1 of 2
noun
1
as in job
a dull, unpleasant, or difficult piece of work one of the labors of Hercules in classical mythology was to clean out the stables of King Augeas Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
- job
- headache
- effort
- bear
- burden
- beast
- chore
- drudgery
- killer
- load
- trouble
- strain
- sweat
- lucubration
- heavy lifting
- grind
- nuisance
- weight
- bother
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- setup
- breeze
- kid stuff
- cinch
- duck soup
- child's play
- snap
2
as in effort
the active use of energy in producing a result a superhuman amount of labor must have gone into designing and building the pyramids of Egypt Synonyms & Similar Words
- effort
- work
- pains
- exertion
- energy
- expenditure
- sweat
- while
- trouble
- toil
- power
- drudgery
- elbow grease
- travail
- try
- muscle
- endeavor
- strain
- might
- grind
- attempt
- go
- slog
- dint
- force
- essay
- trial
- pass
- puissance
- stab
- whack
- fling
- shot
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- facility
- ease
- smoothness
- fluency
- idleness
- indolence
- laziness
- inertia
- inactivity
- inaction
- quiescence
- dormancy
- adroitness
- languor
3
as in toil
very hard or unpleasant work a political dissident forced to do six months of hard labor in the salt mines as punishment Synonyms & Similar Words
- toil
- effort
- slavery
- drudgery
- pains
- exertion
- sweat
- travail
- fatigue
- struggle
- drudge
- grind
- job
- donkeywork
- moil
- trouble
- responsibility
- duty
- obligation
- chore
- spadework
- tedium
- routine
- treadmill
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- rest
- leisure
- relaxation
- fun
- play
- ease
- entertainment
- recreation
- decompression
- diversion
- amusement
- sport
- idleness
- repose
- inertia
- inactivity
- dormancy
- loafing
- dalliance
- inertness
- goldbricking
- lounging
- dallying
- lolling
4
as in childbirth
the act or process of giving birth to children the mother's labor lasted for six hours Synonyms & Similar Words
- childbirth
- pregnancy
- childbearing
- delivery
- parturition
- abortion
- contraction
- travail
- miscarriage
- pains
- accouchement
- confinement
- birth pang
- natural childbirth
- cesarean section
- childbed
- lying-in
- caesarean section
5
as in production
something produced by physical or intellectual effort a small, personal film that was clearly a labor of love for the director and actors Synonyms & Similar Words
- production
- product
- work
- yield
- fruit
- output
- produce
- handiwork
- result
- commodity
- resultant
- affair
- outcome
- thing
- goods
- object
- merchandise
- development
- entry
- handicraft
- article
- wares
- effect
- handcraft
- offspring
- issue
- consequence
- residual
- derivative
- outgrowth
- aftermath
- upshot
- corollary
- side effect
- line
- sequence
- conclusion
- offshoot
- sequel
- by-product
- side reaction
- spin-off
- aftereffect
labor
2 of 2verb
as in to struggle
to devote serious and sustained effort the young lawyer labored most of the weekend over the difficult legal brief Synonyms & Similar Words
- struggle
- work
- toil
- travail
- slave
- endeavor
- sweat
- plow
- drudge
- strive
- tug
- hustle
- try
- grub
- moil
- strain
- bang away
- sweat blood
- hump
- plug
- slog
- peg (away)
- fag
- dig (away)
- plod
- pitch in
- exercise
- beaver (away)
- attack
- drive
- overwork
- essay
- dig in
- exert
- knuckle down
- scratch
- buckle (down)
- apply (oneself)
- eke out
- wade
- overexert
- put out
- scrabble
- hammer (away)
- trudge
- grind (out)
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- break
- ease (up)
- rest
- slacken
- idle
- hang (around or out)
- loaf
- let up
- bum
- chill
- hack (around)
- shirk
- goof (off)
- lounge
- relax
- slack (off)
- repose
- play
- veg out
- unwind
- dally
- laze
- bask
- footle
- trifle
- hang
- goldbrick
- goof (around)
- fool around
- dillydally
- hang about
- loll
- mess around
- monkey (around)
- dabble
- potter (around)
- putter (around)
- doodle
- fribble
Synonym Chooser
Some common synonyms of labor are drudgery, grind, toil, travail, and work. While all these words mean "activity involving effort or exertion," labor applies to physical or intellectual work involving great and often strenuous exertion.
farmers demanding fair compensation for their labor
The words drudgery and labor can be used in similar contexts, but drudgery suggests dull and irksome labor.
an editorial job with a good deal of drudgery
The words grind and labor are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, grind implies labor exhausting to mind or body.
the grind of the assembly line
The synonyms toil and labor are sometimes interchangeable, but toil implies prolonged and fatiguing labor.
his lot would be years of back-breaking toil
While in some cases nearly identical to labor, travail is bookish for labor involving pain or suffering.
years of travail were lost when the house burned
Although the words work and labor have much in common, work may imply activity of body, of mind, of a machine, or of a natural force.
too tired to do any work