Meaning & use
labor
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Meanings
noununcountable
Work, especially tiring physical work, or the effort that goes into making something.
Grammar: Not used with an or plural: a lot of labor, not many labors.
Patterns
- hard labor
- the labor of something
Building the stone wall took months of labor.
The price of the cabinet reflects the skilled labor involved.
He spent the summer doing manual labor on a farm.
noununcountable
Workers as a group, especially compared with the people who employ them.
Grammar: Takes a singular verb: Labor is demanding better pay.
Patterns
- labor and management
- organized labor
Labor and management finally reached an agreement.
Organized labor supported the new safety law.
The factory moved to a region with cheaper labor.
noununcountablemedical
The process of a woman giving birth, from the start of contractions until the baby is born.
Grammar: Used without an in general: She went into labor.
Patterns
- go into labor
- be in labor
She went into labor at midnight.
Her labor lasted nearly twelve hours.
The nurse checked how far the labor had progressed.
verbintransitiveformal
To work hard, especially at something difficult or slow.
Grammar: No object; often followed by over or at: labor over a report.
Patterns
- labor over something
- labor at something
- labor to do something
He labored over the speech for a week.
Farmers labored in the fields from dawn.
They labored to finish the bridge before winter.
Word forms
| plural | labors |
|---|---|
| third person singular | labors |
| past tense | labored |
| -ing form | laboring |
Common combinations
- manual labor
- Manual labor can be hard on the back.
- cheap labor
- Some companies move abroad in search of cheap labor.
- go into labor
- My sister went into labor three weeks early.
- labor union
- The labor union asked for shorter shifts.
- labor of love
- Restoring the old boat was a labor of love.
- labor market
- The labor market is strong this year.
Synonyms and how they differ
- toil
- Toil is more literary and stresses long, exhausting effort, while labor is common and can be neutral.
- work
- Work is the everyday word for any activity, while labor suggests harder or physical effort.
- workforce
- Workforce names the people employed in a place, whereas labor treats them as a resource or side in bargaining.
- drudgery
- Drudgery adds a sense of boring, unrewarding tasks that labor does not always have.
Opposites
Word family
- laborer noun
- a person who does physical work
- laborious adjective
- needing much time and effort
- laboriously adverb
- in a slow, difficult way
- collaborate verb
- to work together with others
- laboratory noun
- a room for scientific work
Commonly confused: labor or labour?
labor vs labour
Labour is the British spelling of labor. The Labour Party is a British political party, so the spelling matters there.
Practice
Which sentence uses labor to mean the process of childbirth?
Choose one answer.
Going into labor is the childbirth sense. The other sentences use labor for workers, effort or workers' cost.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “labor”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.