La″bor (lā″bẽr), n. [OE. labour, OF. labour, laber, labur, F. labeur, L. labor; cf. Gr. λαμβάνειν 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. A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to an area of 177⅟₇ acres. Bartlett.
Syn. — Work; toil; drudgery; task; exertion; effort; industry; painstaking. See Toll.