Word.ws English Dictionary

labor

/ˈleɪ.bɚ/

labor is the alternative spelling of labour.

Meaning of labour

Noun

labour (countable and uncountable, plural labours)

  1. An effort expended on a particular task; toil, work.
    • […]So I ſet myſelf to enlarge my Cave and Works farther into the Earth; for it was a looſe ſandy Rock, which yielded eaſily to the Labour I beſtowed on it[…]1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 78
  2. That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.
    • Being a labour of so great difficulty, the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for.[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page)
  3. (uncountable) Workers in general; the working class, the workforce; sometimes specifically the labour movement, organised labour.
    • In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 364–365
  4. (uncountable) A political party or force aiming or claiming to represent the interests of labour.
  5. The act or process of a mother giving birth.
    • Near-synonyms: childbirth, parturition
  6. The time period during which a mother gives birth.

See all 14 meanings of labour

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Labor

Labor

  1. (Australian, informal) The Australian Labor Party.
    • Nevertheless there is a distinct difference of emphasis, in the sense just indicated, between the two sides of Australian politics. There has always been some international isolationism, too, in Labor circles in Australia.1970, Australian Institute of International Affairs, Institute of Pacific Relations, Australia and the Pacific, page 10
    • Labor did not regain office until 1929, and then only for a three-year period.1984, David Harris Solomon, Australia′s Government and Parliament, page 102
  2. (UK, US, misspelling, Australian spelling) Misspelling of Labour, a UK political party.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Labor

Labor (plural Labors)

  1. A surname from French.

Forms of labor

Noun
plurallabors
Verb
third-person singular presentlabors
present participlelaboring
past participlelabored
pastlabored
Proper noun
pluralLabors

Origin of labor

Variant of Labarre.

Words formed from labor

Phrases with labor

4 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with labor

Questions about labor

What does labor mean?
Labor means the Australian Labor Party.
What is labor the alternative spelling of?
Labor is the alternative spelling of labour.
What part of speech is labor?
Labor is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce labor?
Labor is pronounced /ˈleɪ.bɚ/ (US).

Words near labor in the dictionary

  1. Labombard
  2. Labombards
  3. Labonte
  4. labonza
  5. labonzas
  6. labor
  7. labor action
  8. labor actions
  9. labor aristocracies
  10. labor aristocracy
  11. labor camp

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: labor (page history and authors); Labor (page history and authors); labour (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-labor.ogg, en-au-Labor.ogg.

Cite this entry: “labor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/labor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.