labour

Other spellings

• (US) labor

Pronunciation

• IPA ^(key): /leɪbə/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: la‧bour

Noun

Singular labour

Plural labours

1. (uncountable) 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. (uncountable) Labour are the people who do this kind of work.

   There's a big labour shortage in the construction industry.

3. (uncountable) Labour is the process a pregnant woman goes through when she is giving birth.

   She was in labour for more than 12 hours before her baby was bourn.

   Her labour was painful and slow. The doctors had to give her medicines to speed up her labour.

4. Labour is the name of a big political party in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

   Labour won the election.

Verb

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.