Other forms: labours
Labour is the process of giving birth. Go into labour, a long labour, in labour for hours.
It is divided into three stages, and first labours are typically longer. Induced labour is started medically. This is the British spelling; American English writes labor. The other main senses are work, especially physical — manual labour, hard labour — and workers taken together: the labour market, cheap labour. With a capital letter, Labour is the British political party. Note laborious, and a labour of love.
1nounlabourThe process of giving birth.
“She was in labour for about nineteen hours.”
synonyms: labor
2nounworkWork, especially physical work.
“Building the stone wall by hand took weeks of hard labour.”
labour is hard work, or childbirth.
Also accepted in games: labor
Latin labor meant toil, effort and hardship. English took all of it, and the childbirth sense is a specialisation of the general one — labour is simply the hardest work most people ever do.
Latin
labor
Old French
labor
Middle English
labor
English, today
labour
From Middle English labor, labour, labur, from Old French labor (modern labeur) and its etymon, Latin labor.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA