WordWeb Online

1. Productive work (especially physical work done for wages)
   "his labour did not require a great deal of skill";
   - labor [US], toil
    
2. A social class comprising those who do manual labour or work for wages
   "there is a shortage of skilled labour in this field";
   - labor [US], working class, proletariat, proletariate [archaic]
    
3. Concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child
   "she was in labour for six hours";
   - parturiency, labor [US], confinement, lying-in, travail [literary], childbed [archaic]
    
4. An organized attempt by workers to improve their status by united action (particularly via labour unions) or the leaders of this movement
   - labor movement [US, Austral], trade union movement, labor [US], labour movement [Brit, Cdn]
    
5. Any piece of work that is undertaken or attempted
   "he prepared for great labours";
   - undertaking, project, task, labor [US]

1. Strive and make an effort to reach a goal
   "She laboured for years to make a decent living";
   - tug, labor [US], push, drive, plow [US], plough on [Brit], plow on [US], plough [Brit], sweat
    
2. Work hard
   "Lexicographers labour all day long";
   - labor [US], toil, fag [informal], travail [literary], grind [informal], drudge, dig [US, informal], moil [N. Amer]
    
3. Undergo the efforts of childbirth
   - labor [US]

1. A progressive centre-left or socialist political party founded in Great Britain in 1900, one of the two largest parties in Parliament since the 1920s
   - British Labour Party, Labour Party [UK], Labor [US]

Derived forms: laboured, labours, labouring

See also: press on

Type of: birth, birthing, class, do work, experience, fight, giving birth, have, labor party [US], labour party [Brit, Cdn], parturition, party, political party, reform movement, social class, socio-economic class, stratum, struggle, undergo, work

Part of: gestation, maternity, pregnancy

Encyclopedia: Labour, Democracy and Freedom Block