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# labour

«labour» in Mova's school dictionary: **hard work, especially work with your body** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (labour; labours — rare); verb (labour, labours, laboured, labouring); proper noun (Labour — a UK political party)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Labour is hard work, especially work with your body. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#m1)

2) Labour is the workers in a country or company, or the work they do for pay. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#m2)

3) Labour is the process of giving birth to a baby. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#m3)

4) To labour is to work hard or to move with great effort. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#m4)

5) Labour (with a capital L) is one of the main political parties in the UK, and there are Labour parties in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#m5)

6) A labour can also be a hard task that someone is given to complete, such as one of the twelve labours of Heracles. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#m6)

### sense in the lessons

In history lessons, child labour means children doing hard jobs for little pay. In maths, labour costs are what you pay workers: hours × rate. In everyday life «go into labour» means start giving birth. Phrases: hard labour, child labour, manual labour, labour costs, in labour, labour of love, Labour Party.

### examples

- Building the wall took a lot of labour. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x1)
- Mum went into labour at two in the morning. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x2)
- In the past, children worked in factories — this was child labour. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x3)
- The plumber charged £40 an hour for labour; 3 hours cost £120. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x4)
- The old horse laboured up the hill. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x5)
- Making the quilt was a labour of love for Nan. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x6)
- The Labour Party won the election. (UK) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x7)
- The farm needs more labour at harvest time. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x8)
- THE CRETAN BULL.--The seventh labour of Heracles was to capture the Cretan bull. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/#x9)

### note

British spelling «labour»; American spelling «labor» (also Australian «Labor Party»). Mostly uncountable. «Labourer» is a person who does manual work. «Laboratory» (lab) is a different word. In maths, labour cost = hours worked × pay per hour.

### In the corpora

- [Labour can take many hours, so a grandparent or friend often comes to look after the older children.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/18-were-having-a-baby/15/)
- ["Her time came" means she went into labour and the baby began to be born (old-fashioned).](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/12-birth-and-couples/7/)
- [The Potosí mine was worked under the Spanish mita forced-labour system, in which many Indigenous Andean workers died.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/27-resources-and-what-countries-trade/16/)
- [In the UK, Labour and the Conservatives have been the two biggest parties for a long time.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/4-parties-teams-with-ideas/6/)
- [God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and gave judgment yesternight.'](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.984/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «labour» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/labour/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.