Definitions for the word "labor" from multiple English dictionaries.
1. n.
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.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
2. n.
Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of compiling a history.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
3. n.
That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
4. n.
Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
5. n.
Any pang or distress.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
6. n.
The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
7. n.
A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to an area of 177/ acres.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
8. n.
To exert muscular strength; to exert one's strength with painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to work; to toil.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
9. n.
To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
10. n.
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.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
11. n.
To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
12. n.
To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
13. v. t.
To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
14. v. t.
To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
15. v. t.
To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge stre/uously; as, to labor a point or argument.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
16. v. t.
To belabor; to beat.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
17. etc.
Us & austral. Var. Of *labour etc.
Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 1884
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Additional Info
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