labour

From Wiktionary
labour is on the Academic Word List.


labour is one of the 1000 most common headwords.
l - labour - lad

Other spellings[change]

Pronunciation[change]

Noun[change]

Singular
labour

Plural
labours

Usually (uncountable)

  1. Labour is the work that people do, usually lifting, moving, building, etc. rather than desk work.
    The cost of labour is higher than the cost of building materials.
  2. Labour is the people who do this kind of work.
    There's a big labour shortage in the construction industry.
  3. Labour is the name of a big political party in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
    Labour won the election.

Verb[change]

Plain form
labour

Third-person singular
labours

Past tense
laboured

Past participle
laboured

Present participle
labouring

  1. (intransitive) If you labour, you work hard.
    He laboured over the food all afternoon to get ready for dinner.
  2. (transitive) If you labour the point, you keep talking about it after people understand it well.

Synonyms[change]