Labour
/'leibə/ Cách viết khác : (labor) /'leibə/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
Noun:
- Physical or mental effort, especially in work: "Labour" refers to the exertion of effort, particularly in tasks requiring physical strength or mental application, often done for payment.
- Workers collectively: "Labour" can denote the body of people who perform work, especially manual or industrial work, considered as a social or economic class.
- The process of childbirth: In a medical context, "labour" is the process of contractions and effort leading to the birth of a child.
- A political party: "Labour" (often capitalized) refers to a major political party, especially in the UK and other Commonwealth countries, traditionally representing workers' interests.
Verb:
- To work hard; to exert oneself: To "labour" means to work with great effort or to strive towards a goal.
- To move with difficulty or strain: To "labour" can describe moving slowly and with great effort.
- To be troubled or burdened by something: To "labour under" a belief, problem, or disadvantage means to be affected or hindered by it.
- To treat or discuss in excessive detail: To "labour" a point means to explain or discuss it at unnecessary length.
Usage Examples
Noun:
- The construction project required months of hard labour.
- The new policy aims to protect the rights of labour.
- She was in labour for several hours before the baby was born.
- He voted for the Labour Party in the last election.
Verb:
- They laboured all day in the fields.
- The old truck laboured up the steep hill.
- He has been labouring under the misconception that the job was his.
- The speaker laboured the point until the audience grew restless.
Advanced Usage
"Labour of love": A task done for pleasure, not for reward or payment.
- Restoring the vintage car was a true labour of love for him.
"Lost labour": Effort that is wasted or produces no result.
- Trying to convince him was lost labour; his mind was made up.
Variants and Related Words
- Labor: The standard American English spelling of "labour".
- Labourer (noun): A person who does physical work, especially of an unskilled kind.
- The farm employed several labourers for the harvest.
- Laborious (adjective): Requiring considerable time and effort.
- Proofreading the manuscript was a laborious task.
Synonyms
- Work: General activity involving mental or physical effort.
- Toil: Exhausting physical labour.
- Strive: To make great efforts to achieve something.
Related Phrasal Verbs
Labour under: To be misled by or suffer from a belief or disadvantage.
- The company has been labouring under financial difficulties for years.
Labour over: To work on something with great effort and for a long time.
- She laboured over the essay all night.
Related Idioms
A labour of Hercules: An extremely difficult or nearly impossible task.
- Cleaning the entire warehouse single-handedly was a labour of Hercules.
Fruit of one's labour(s): The positive results or rewards gained from hard work.
- Seeing the finished garden was the sweet fruit of her labour.
Noun
- productive work (especially physical work done for wages)
- his labor did not require a great deal of skill
- a political party formed in Great Britain in 1900; characterized by the promotion of labor's interests and formerly the socialization of key industries
- concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child
- she was in labor for six hours
- a social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages
- there is a shortage of skilled labor in this field
Verb
- undergo the efforts of childbirth
- strive and make an effort to reach a goal
- She tugged for years to make a decent living
- We have to push a little to make the deadline!
- She is driving away at her doctoral thesis
- work hard
- She was digging away at her math homework
- Lexicographers drudge all day long