manual labour

Thân thiện

A worker performs manual labour in a garden.

Definition

Noun: - Physical work performed with the hands: "Manual labour" refers to work that relies primarily on human physical effort and skill using the hands and body, as opposed to intellectual or administrative work.

Usage

• The term describes work in industries such as construction, agriculture, manufacturing, and maintenance.
• It often implies work that is physically demanding.

Examples

Advanced Usage

• "To engage in manual labour": to perform physical work.
  • After university, he engaged in manual labour to understand a different way of life.
• The concept is often discussed in contrast to "mental labour" or "white-collar work."

Variants and Related Words

• Manual labor (noun): The American English spelling of "manual labour."
• Labourer/Laborer (noun): A person who performs manual labour.
  • The contractor hired several labourers for the site.
• Manual (adjective): Relating to or done with the hands.
  • Manual dexterity is essential for a surgeon.

Synonyms

• Physical work
• Blue-collar work
• Handiwork (when emphasizing skill with the hands)
• Toil (suggests exhausting labour)

Related Phrases

• "Hard labour": a specific term for physically punishing work, historically as a judicial sentence.
  • The old law prescribed hard labour for that crime.
• "Sweat of one's brow" (idiom): a phrase meaning to earn something by one's own hard work, often manual labour.
  • He built the business through the sweat of his brow.

Học thuật

Noun

1. labor done with the hands

Từ đồng nghĩa

• manual labor