Word.ws English Dictionary

labor of love

labor of love noun: a task performed voluntarily without expectation of reimbursement or practical benefit; an altruistic work or undertaking; an action or hobby performed purely out of an inner desire to do so.

Noun

labor of love (plural labors of love)

  1. (US, idiomatic) A task performed voluntarily without expectation of reimbursement or practical benefit; an altruistic work or undertaking; an action or hobby performed purely out of an inner desire to do so.
    • Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance to a painful suspicion, which, through late Chapters, has begun to haunt him; paralyzing any little enthusiasm that might still have rendered his thorny Biographical task a labor of love.1831, Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC
    • "Alex," said the Colonel, "what a painstaking and delicate task it will be, under that law, to write your obituary." "There will be great risk in writing yours, Colonel," said Alex; "but it will be a labor of love, nevertheless; a labor of love, Colonel."1891, Charles Carroll Goodwin, The Comstock Club

Examples of labor of love in a sentence

  • "Only a labor of love could have turned out so well."a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise:
  • It’s a labor of love; a successful Dungeons & Dragons campaign often feels like a second job.2021 July 9, Luke Winkie, How a professional dungeon master keeps his games fun:
  • The Spanish musician on why (and how) she pushed herself to make “Lux,” a labor of love exploring the feminine divine and the brutalities of romance.2025 October 30, Joe Coscarelli, Jon Caramanica, “Rosalía’s Thrilling New Avant-Pop Swerve: Singing in 13 Languages”, in The New York...

Forms of labor of love

plurallabors of love
alternative formlabour of love

Origin of labor of love

Calque of Koine Greek κόπου τῆς ἀγάπης (kópou tês agápēs), from the New Testament epistles 1 Thessalonians and Hebrews

Questions about labor of love

What does labor of love mean?
Labor of love means a task performed voluntarily without expectation of reimbursement or practical benefit; an altruistic work or undertaking; an action or hobby performed purely out of an inner desire to do so.
How do you use labor of love in a sentence?
"Only a labor of love could have turned out so well."
What part of speech is labor of love?
Labor of love is a noun.
What is the plural of labor of love?
The plural of labor of love is labors of love.

Words near labor of love in the dictionary

  1. labor force
  2. labor forces
  3. labor law
  4. labor market
  5. labor markets
  6. labor of love
  7. labor pain
  8. labor pains
  9. Labor Party
  10. labor power
  11. labor relations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: labor of love (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: En-au-labor of love.ogg.

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