Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Requiring or showing effort; done with difficulty: Used to describe actions, processes, or physical signs that appear strenuous, forced, or not effortless.
   • Lacking natural ease or spontaneity; contrived: Used to describe a style of speaking, writing, or artistic expression that seems awkward, overly deliberate, or not flowing smoothly.

Usage Examples

• Showing effort or difficulty:

  • After the long run, his breathing was laboured and heavy.
  • The negotiations proceeded at a laboured pace, with frequent pauses and disagreements.

• Lacking natural ease; contrived:

  • The author's early work is interesting but has a somewhat laboured style.
  • Her attempt at humor felt laboured and failed to make anyone laugh.

Advanced Usage

• "Laboured metaphor/simile": A figure of speech that feels forced or overly complex, detracting from its effectiveness.

  • The poem was filled with laboured metaphors that obscured its meaning.

• "Laboured point": An argument or idea that is explained in an unnecessarily complicated or drawn-out manner.

  • He made a laboured point about bureaucracy that could have been stated simply.

Variants and Related Words

• Labor (verb): To work hard; to move or proceed with difficulty.
  • The ship labored through the rough seas.
• Laborious (adjective): Requiring considerable time and effort; characterized by hard work.
  • Digging the trench was a laborious task.
• Laboriously (adverb): In a way that requires a lot of effort.
  • He laboriously translated the ancient manuscript.

Synonyms

• Strained: Showing signs of tension or effort.
• Forced: Produced or continued with deliberate effort rather than naturally.
• Arduous: Involving or requiring strenuous effort; difficult and tiring.
• Stilted: (Of speech or writing) stiff and self-conscious or unnatural.

Antonyms

• Effortless: Requiring no physical or mental exertion.
• Natural: Arising from inherent qualities; not artificial or contrived.
• Fluid: Smooth and flowing effortlessly.
• Spontaneous: Performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse.

Related Phrases and Idioms

• "A laboured breath": A single breath that is drawn with visible difficulty.
  • The patient took a final, laboured breath.
• "To make heavy weather of something" (Idiom with similar meaning): To make a task seem more difficult than it really is.
  • He's really making heavy weather of writing that email. (This implies the process is laboured.)

Adjective

1. requiring or showing effort
   • heavy breathing
   • the subject made for labored reading
2. lacking natural ease
   • a labored style of debating