Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use labour in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Labour means an effort expended on a particular task; toil, work. Example: “I think we've all got the idea. There's no need to labour the point.”

Examples of labour by meaning

nounWorkers 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.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages...

nounThe act or process of a mother giving birth.

  • Paul Doherty came to the rescue when his wife Georgina went into labour early just minutes from their local hospital.2017 March 7, Stephen Maguire, “Hero Irish dad reveals he had to tell car valet he ‘wasn’t up to anything illegal’ after wife gave birth on...

nounA group of moles.

  • Hidden from its broader surrounding, a labor of moles can toil with the materiality of its existence — Earth — but must always heed barriers to their subterranean sphere.2014 Fall, Cyrus Shahan, Environment, Space, Place, volume 6, number 2, Zeta Books, page 118
  • According to the local authority, the development site is home to a labour of moles which have now started appearing in the neighbouring cemetery with scores of molehills now visible across the grounds.2025 March 17, Elliot Jessett, “Dad in tears when he turned up at wife's grave and saw what had happened”, in Liverpool Echo

verbTo toil, to work.

  • "Crab" 2-6-0 No 42802 labours up to Beattock Summit with a northbound freight from Carlisle in August 1960.1961 May, “Beattock Interlude”, in Trains Illustrated, page 287, photo caption

verbTo belabour, to emphasise or expand upon (a point in a debate, etc).

  • I think we've all got the idea. There's no need to labour the point.
  • It is needless to labor a point which is so well known.1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 36

More sentences with labour

  • He pointed out that it takes both labour and capital to produce goods.From the entry capital
  • At the end of the marathon, her laboured breathing told us she was exhausted.From the entry laboured
  • The nurse gave the woman in labour trichloroethylene, a chemical also used to clean metal parts.From the entry trichloroethylene
  • The labour camps of the old Soviet Union are well described by the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.From the entry labour camp
  • We gave the mother some Trilene right before she went into labour.From the entry Trilene
  • He spent his retirement enjoying the fruits of his labour.From the entry fruit
  • (from strenuous labour) Whew! That box weighs a ton!From the entry whew
  • Salute the beloved Persis, which laboured much in the Lord.From the entry Persis
  • Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord.From the entry Tryphena
  • The gods smiled on his labours.From the entry smile
  • Within the enabling constraints of law, I sell labour to my employer — nothing more, nothing less.2026 July 19, Paul Abela, “Of course my employers need certain private information — but their questions are getting more uncomfortable…. From the entry all in
  • Labour says it will repeal the legislation if it wins the next General Election.2024 February 7, Mel Holley, “Network News: War of words between Prime Minister and union”, in RAIL, number 1002, page 14. From the entry repeal
  • Labour is set to publish its own ideas 'shortly', which could mean anything from days to weeks.2024 May 1, Christian Wolmar, “A long-term approach – delivered by the public sector”, in Rail, number 1008, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire…. From the entry friendly fire
  • Europeans’ labour requirements in the New World were also slaked by slaves from Africa.2017, Jason Hickel, The Divide […] , London: William Heinemann, →ISBN. From the entry slake
  • Woofers are those who labour on organic farms within the World Organization of Organic Farms (WOOF) Network.2016, Marlyne Sahakian, Czarina Saloma, Suren Erkman, Food Consumption in the City, page 118. From the entry woofer
  • Universality underlies the aggregatability of labour, while mobility implies the proportionality of money value to labour time.2016, Giuseppe Freni, Economic Theory and its History, page 381. From the entry aggregatability
  • "Mechanisation, science, and technology have centupled the productive potential of human labour."2015, Errico Malatesta, Carl Levy, Life and Ideas: The Anarchist Writings of Errico Malatesta. From the entry centuple
  • But it also kept the economic engine humming by ensuring the availability of plentiful cheap labour.2013 July 27, “Penury portrait”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8846. From the entry mercantilist
  • Pre-portioning is carried out with the intelligent portioning machine, saving considerable labour at this stage.2013, Cesarettin Alasalvar, Tony Taylor, Seafoods: Quality, Technology and Nutraceutical Applications, →ISBN. From the entry pre-portioning
  • Central banks change the cost of money—the interest rate—in order to clear labour markets.2012 June 26, R. A., “The twilight of the central banker”, in Economist, retrieved 25 Aug 2014. From the entry cost of money
  • He could not sack me before I was pensionable, for fear of labour courts.2011, Shehan Karunatilaka, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, Jonathan Cape, page 15. From the entry pensionable
  • Yet for long spells Villa looked laboured and devoid of ideas.2010 October 31, Stuart James, “(please specify the article title)”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News &…. From the entry of
  • Labour has begun to redress the balance, but there is still a long row to hoe.2009 April 11, Hanif Kureishi, “Margaret Thatcher: Acceptable in the 80s?”, in The Guardian, UK, retrieved 23 Jul 2014. From the entry long row to hoe
  • Another way to put it is that these jobs require emotional labour, not manual labour.2009 May 20, Margaret Wente, “We are witnessing the passing of working-class masculinity”, in The Globe and Mail, archived from the…. From the entry emotional labor
  • And women, even unskilled women, are much better at emotional labour than men are.2009 May 20, Margaret Wente, “We are witnessing the passing of working-class masculinity”, in The Globe and Mail, archived from the…. From the entry emotional labor
  • Here, their sweat attests to labour, and their weals are caused by strong-handed grips.2006, Tamara Neal, The Wounded Hero: Non-fatal Injury in Homer's Iliad, →ISBN, page 57. From the entry strong-handed
  • Labour is known to be worried about the Cameron effect and might attempt to spike his guns.2005 November 8, John Crace, The Guardian. From the entry spike someone's guns
  • Such an operative might also be the contact for one or more "missionaries" or labour spies.2003, Charles H. McCormick, Seeing Reds, page 45. From the entry roper
  • I do have a tendency sometimes to overqualify what I am saying or labour the point.2003, Linda Papadopoulos, Malcolm Cross, Robert Bor, Reporting in Counselling and Psychotherapy, page 59. From the entry overqualify
  • Strategic sites in even the remotest regions of the kingdom were swiftly fortified using forced labour.1999, Linda Flavell, Roger Flavell, “1066[:] The Normans Begin to Erect Castles”, in dictionary of english down through the ages[:] words…. From the entry swiftly
  • Jefferson grew up familiar with the instruments and immense, finical labour of map-making from scratch.1996, Jonathan Raban, Bad Land: An American Romance, Pantheon Books, page 52. From the entry finical
  • The problem of surabundant population was transformed into the solution of demand for more labour.1996, Ernest Benz, “Population Change and the Economy”, in Sheilagh Ogilvie, editor, Germany: A New Social and Economic History, Volume 2…. From the entry surabundant
  • The peculiar links between land, labour, credit and market have trapped the peasants of Kalahandi region.1996, P Sainath, Everybody Loves a Good Drought, Penguin Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 218. From the entry Kalahandi

Meaning of labour

  1. noun An effort expended on a particular task; toil, work.
  2. noun That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.
  3. noun Workers in general; the working class, the workforce; sometimes specifically the labour movement, organised labour.

Full definition of labour

Questions about labour in a sentence

How do you use labour in a sentence?
Labour is used as a noun and verb. For example: “I think we've all got the idea. There's no need to labour the point.”
What is a short sentence with labour?
“The gods smiled on his labours.”
What does labour mean?
Labour means an effort expended on a particular task; toil, work.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: labour (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use labour in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/labour. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.