Labor \La"bor\, n. [OE. labour, OF. labour, laber, labur, F. labeur, L. labor; cf. Gr. lamba`nein to take, Skr. labh to get, seize.]

[Written also labour.]

1. Physical toil or bodily exertion, especially when fatiguing, irksome, or unavoidable, in distinction from sportive exercise; hard, muscular effort directed to some useful end, as agriculture, manufactures, and like; servile toil; exertion; work.

God hath set Labor and rest, as day and night, to men Successive. --Milton.

2. Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of compiling a history.

3. That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.

Being a labor of so great a difficulty, the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for. --Hooker.

4. Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth.

The queen's in labor, They say, in great extremity; and feared She'll with the labor end. --Shak.

5. Any pang or distress. --Shak.

6. (Naut.) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.

7. [Sp.]

A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to an area of 1771/7 acres. --Bartlett.

Syn: Work; toil; drudgery; task; exertion; effort; industry; painstaking. See Toll.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Labor \La"bor\, v. t. [F. labourer, L. laborare.]

1. To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil.

The most excellent lands are lying fallow, or only labored by children. --W. Tooke.

2. To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care. ``To labor arms for Troy.'' --Dryden.

3. To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge stre?uously; as, to labor a point or argument.

4. To belabor; to beat. [Obs.]

--Dryden.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Labor \La"bor\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Labored; p. pr. & vb. n. Laboring.]

[OE. labouren, F. labourer, L. laborare. See Labor, n.]

[Written also labour.]

1. To exert muscular strength; to exert one's strength with painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to work; to toil.

Adam, well may we labor still to dress This garden. --Milton.

2. To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains.

3. To be oppressed with difficulties or disease; to do one's work under conditions which make it especially hard, wearisome; to move slowly, as against opposition, or under a burden; to be burdened; -- often with under, and formerly with of.

The stone that labors up the hill. --Granville.

The line too labors,and the words move slow. --Pope.

To cure the disorder under which he labored. --Sir W. Scott.

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. --Matt. xi. 28

4. To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth.

5. (Naut.) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea. -- Totten.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Labor \La"bor\, n. (Mining.) A store or set of stopes. [Sp. Amer.]

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)