Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb UK, Canada Present participle of labour.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective doing arduous or unpleasant work

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • He spent his days in labouring among people upon whom he sometimes fancied he had obtained no hold.

    That Lass o' Lowrie's: A Lancashire Story 1877

  • Here was an innumerable multitude of people gathered together, so that they trade one upon another, in labouring to get foremost, and to come within hearing.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume V (Matthew to John) 1721

  • A pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, across the bare floor of the room, as this interrogatory was put; and there issued, from a door on the right hand; first, a feeble candle: and next, the form of the same individual who has been heretofore described as labouring under the infirmity of speaking through his nose, and officiating as waiter at the public – house on Saffron Hill.

    Oliver Twist 2007

  • The labouring people are all black -- if these blacks can be called a labouring people.

    The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 Various

  • The little silver bell tinkles at a wayside shrine, calling the labouring man to propitiate the idol for the carelessness and detected dishonesties of his day's labours, and goodly Hindus, men and women, stream down the busy thoroughfare, responsive to the call.

    Love and Life Behind the Purdah 1901

  • She urged upon her companion the idea of labouring in the world of fashion, appeared to attribute to her familiar relations with that mysterious realm, and wanted to know why she shouldn't stir up some of her friends down there on the Mill-dam?

    The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) Henry James 1879

  • A pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, across the bare floor of the room, as this interrogatory was put; and there issued, from a door on the right hand; first, a feeble candle: and next, the form of the same individual who has been heretofore described as labouring under the infirmity of speaking through his nose, and officiating as waiter at the public-house on Saffron Hill.

    Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1841

  • A pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, accross the bare floor of the room, as this interrogatory was put; and there issued, from a door on the right hand: first, a feeble candle: and next, the form of the same individual who has been heretofore described as labouring under the infirmity of speaking through his nose, and officiating as waiter at the public-house on Saffron Hill.

    Oliver Twist 1838

  • By labour, I mean the poor manualist, whom we properly call the labouring man, who works for himself indeed in one respect, but sometimes serves and works for wages, as a servant, or workman.

    The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) Daniel Defoe 1696

  • In fact, they considered convicts to be only a more expensive kind of labouring cattle, and on account of their not being able to live upon grass, a trifle less worthy than working bullocks.

    Ralph Rashleigh 2004

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