Tra từ labour - Từ điển Oxford Advanced Learner 8th

la·bour AW [labour labours laboured labouring] (especially US labor)noun, verb BrE [ˈleɪbə(r)] NAmE [ˈleɪbər]
noun

WORK
1. uncountable work, especially physical work
•manual labour (= work using your hands)
• The price will include the labour and materials.
• The company wants to keep down labour costs.
•The workers voted to withdraw their labour (= to stop work as a means of protest).
•He was sentenced to two years in a labour camp (= a type of prison where people have to do hard physical work).
2. countable, usually plural (formal)a task or period of work
•He was so exhausted from the day's labours that he went straight to bed.
•People look forward to enjoying the fruits of their labours during retirement.

PEOPLE WHO WORK
3. uncountable the people who work or are available for work in a country or company
•a shortage of labour
• Employers are using immigrants as cheap labour.
• Repairs involve skilled labour, which can be expensive.
•good labour relations (= the relationship between workers and employers)

HAVING BABY
4. uncountable, countable, usually singular the period of time or the process of giving birth to a baby
•Jane was in labour for ten hours.
•She went into labour early.
•labour pains
•Older women tend to have more difficult labours.

POLITICS
5. Laboursingular + singular or plural verb (abbr.Lab.)the British Labour Party
•He always votes Labour.
•Labour was/were in power for many years.

Word Origin:
Middle English: from Old French labour (noun), labourer (verb), both from Latin labor ‘toil, trouble’.

Thesaurus:
labour (BrE) (AmE labor)noun U
•a lifetime of hard manual labour
work • • service • |disapproving drudgery • |informal, disapproving slog • |literary toil •
Opp: ease
hard labour/work/slog/toil
manual/physical/honest/unremitting labour/work/toil
hours/years/a lifetime of labour/work/service/drudgery/toil

Example Bank:
•He was sentenced to four years hard labour for his crime.
•It is now thought that the Pyramids were not built using slave labour.
•It is thought that Stonehenge was built using slave labour.
•Labour was induced when the baby was ten days overdue.
•She was in labour for ten hours.
•She went into labour two weeks early.
•The baby was born after a long labour.
•The miners are threatening to withdraw their labour.
•an increasingly competitive labour market
•tensions between the labour movement and government
•the size of the labour force
•women at risk of preterm labour
•He was sentenced to two years in a labour camp.
•The company wants to keep down labour costs.
•These women were generally accustomed to hard manual labour.
Idioms: ↑labour of love ▪ ↑labour the point
Derived: ↑labour under something

verb

STRUGGLE
1. intransitive to try very hard to do sth difficult
•~ (away) He was in his study labouring away over some old papers.
•~ to do sth They laboured for years to clear their son's name.

WORK HARD
2. intransitive to do hard physical work
•We laboured all day in the fields.
• (old-fashioned)the labouring classes (= the working class)

MOVE WITH DIFFICULTY
3. intransitive (+ adv./prep.) to move with difficulty and effort
Syn: ↑struggle
•The horses laboured up the steep slope.
•With engine labouring, the car struggled up the hill.
Verb forms:

Word Origin:
Middle English: from Old French labour (noun), labourer (verb), both from Latin labor ‘toil, trouble’.

Example Bank:
•They laboured all day in the fields.

See also: ↑labor