belabour
/bɪˈleɪ.bə/
belabour verb: to labour about; labour over; to work hard upon; to ply diligently.
Verb
belabour (third-person singular simple present belabours, present participle belabouring, simple past and past participle belaboured)
- To labour about; labour over; to work hard upon; to ply diligently.
- To beat or thump (someone) soundly.
- 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
He saw the village; he was seen coming bending forward upon his horse, belabouring it with great blows, the girths dripping with blood. - [F]ew country people there are who do not love to see two sturdy fellows thwack and belabour each other with quarter-staff, single-stick, or fists.1881, Walter Besant, James Rice, “How Kitty First Saw the Doctor”, in The Chaplain of the Fleet […], volume I, London: Chatto and Windus, […], →OCLC, part I (Within the Rules), page 82
- 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
- To attack (someone) verbally.
- To discuss or explain (something) excessively or repeatedly; to harp on or overelaborate.
- Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us.1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, inaugural speech
- And so, to belabour the school metaphor, diehard fans of both those fallen leaders resent this pair for snitching in class.2023 August 8, Janan Ganesh, “The oneness of Ron DeSantis and Rishi Sunak”, in Financial Times
belabour meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
belabour in Tamil
- நையப்புடை
belabour in Urdu
- to belabour
- ادھیڑ دینا udheṛ denā
belabour in Malayalam
- strike, beat, hit
- നല്ലപോലെ തല്ലുക, ശാരീരികോപദ്രവം ഏല്പിക്കുക, അടിക്കുക, ഇടിക്കുക, തല്ലുക, പ്രഹരിക്കുക
- attack, criticize, berate
- പ്രഹരിക്കുക, ആക്രമിക്കുക, വാക്കുകൾകൊണ്ട് ആക്രമിക്കുക, ആഞ്ഞടിക്കുക, വിമർശിക്കുക, അപലപിക്കുക
- dwell on, over-elaborate, labour
- അമിതമായി വിസ്തരിക്കുക, അനാവശ്യവിശദാംശങ്ങൾ കൊടുക്കുക, കഠിനപ്രയത്നം ചെയ്യുക, സവിസ്തരം പ്രദിപാദിക്കുക, ഒരു വിഷയത്തെപ്പറ്റി സവിസ്തരം സംസാരിക്കുക, അതിദീർഘമായി എഴുതുക
belabour in Kannada
- ವಾದಮಾಡು, ಚರ್ಚೆಮಾಡು, ತರ್ಕಿಸು, ದೀರ್ಘವಾಗಿ ಮುಂದುವರಿಸು, ಸದೆಬಡಿ, ಚಚ್ಚಿಹಾಕು
Synonyms of belabour
Forms of belabour
| third-person singular present | belabours |
|---|---|
| present participle | belabouring |
| past participle | belaboured |
| past | belaboured |
| alternative US | belabor |
Origin of belabour
From be- (“on, upon, about, over”) + labour. Compare bework, betoil, beswink.
Words formed from belabour
Words that rhyme with belabour
Questions about belabour
- What does belabour mean?
- Belabour means to labour about; labour over; to work hard upon; to ply diligently.
- What is belabour in Tamil?
- Belabour in Tamil is நையப்புடை. See Belabour meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is belabour?
- Belabour is a verb.
- How do you pronounce belabour?
- Belabour is pronounced /bɪˈleɪ.bə/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of belabour?
- The past tense of belabour is belaboured.
Words near belabour in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: belabour (page history and authors); belabour (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ادھیڑ دینا (Urdu) (page history and authors); belabour (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); belabour (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-belabour.wav.
Cite this entry: “belabour.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/belabour. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.