Definition of labor:

• To toil or cause to toil; work; roll or pitch, as a ship at sea.
• To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil.
• To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care.
• To belabor; to beat.
• To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge streuously; as, to labor a point or argument.
• To work; toil; be oppressed or distressed.
• To use muscular strength or mental effort; to toil; be hard- pressed; take pains; move slowly; pitch and roll heavily, as a ship in a storm; suffer the pains of childbirth.
• To undergo labor: to work: to take pains: to be oppressed: to move slowly: to be in travail: ( naut.) to pitch and roll heavily.
• exert oneself, make an effort to reach a goal; " She tugged for years to make a decent living"; " We have to push a little to make the deadline!"; " She is driving away at her doctoral thesis"
• concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of labor to the birth of a child; " she was in labor for six hours"
• a political party formed in Great Britain in 1900; characterized by the promotion of labor's interests and the socialization of key industries
• an organized attempt by workers to improve their status by united action especially via labor unions ( especially the leaders of this movement)
• the federal department responsible for promoting the working conditions of wage earners in the United States; created in 1913
• strive and make an effort to reach a goal; " She tugged for years to make a decent living"; " We have to push a little to make the deadline!"; " She is driving away at her doctoral thesis"
• 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.
• Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of compiling a history.
• That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.
• Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth.
• Any pang or distress.
• The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.
• To exert muscular strength; to exert one's strength with painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to work; to toil.
• To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains.
• To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth.
• To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.
• A store or set of stopes.
• A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to an area of 177 acres.
• 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.
• The function in the female by which the product of conception is expelled from the uterus through the vagina to the outside world.
• Toll or exertion, physical or mental; the whole class of workers employed in the actual production of wealth as distinguished from those who supply money or mental work; as, the relations between capital and labor are difficult to adjust; a task; effort; difficulty; pain; the act of bearing a child.
• Delivery, childbirth; the process of expulsion of a fetus from the uterus at the normal termination of pregnancy.
• The process of giving birth to a child; childbirth.
• Toil or exertion, esp. when fatiguing: work: pains: duties: a task requiring hard work: the pangs of childbirth.
• Work; toil; travail.
• Physical or mental exertion for some end; toil; work.
• Labored.

Usage examples for labor

1. He began to labor to win a smile from his companion.  Black Jack by Max Brand

2. Everybody will remember the faithful labor of Herschel's sister, working all through the night and sleeping through the day, month after month and year after year, helping her great brother in his studies.  Editorials-from-the-Hearst-Newspapers by Brisbane, Arthur

3. We'd heard that there had been a great labor strike out in California, but little did we know how severe it had struck.  Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley

4. Find out that, and then we will begin to give labor its due.  Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays by Lemuel K. Washburn

5. But it was impossible for me or anybody else to keep him from hard labor, although he had plenty.  The Bark Covered House or, Back in the Woods Again by William Nowlin