n. | 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. |
| 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. |
| 4. | Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth. |
| 5. | Any pang or distress. |
| 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 177 |
| 8. | (Mining.) A stope or set of stopes. |
v. i. | 1. | To exert muscular strength; to exert one's strength with painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to work; to toil. |
| 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. |
| 4. | To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be in labor. |
| 5. | (Naut.) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea. |
v. t. | 1. | To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil. |
| 2. | To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care. |
| 3. | To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge strenuously; as, to labor a point or argument. |
| 4. | To belabor; to beat. |
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