Adjacent Words

Laboring definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

LA'BORING, ppr.
1. Exerting muscular strength or intellectual power; toiling; moving with pain or with difficulty; cultivating.
2. A laboring man, or laborer, is often used for a man who performs work that requires no apprenticeship or professional skill, in distinction from an artisan; but this restricted sense is not always observed. A hard laboring man, is one accustomed to hard labor.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: doing arduous or unpleasant work; "drudging peasants"; "the bent backs of laboring slaves picking cotton"; "toiling coal miners in the black deeps" [syn: drudging, laboring, labouring, toiling]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Laboring La"bor*ing, a. 1. That labors; performing labor; esp., performing coarse, heavy work, not requiring skill also, set apart for labor; as, laboring days. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet. --eccl. v. 12. 2. Suffering pain or grief. --Pope. Laboring oar, the oar which requires most strength and exertion; often used figuratively; as, to have, or pull, the laboring oar in some difficult undertaking.