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Career vs Labour - What's the difference?

career | labour |

As nouns the difference between career and labour

is that career is one's calling in life; a person's occupation; one's profession while labour is effort expended on a particular task; toil, work.

As verbs the difference between career and labour

is that career is to move rapidly straight ahead, especially in an uncontrolled way while labour is to toil, to work.

As a proper noun Labour is

Short for the Labour Party.

career

English

(wikipedia career)

Noun

(en noun)
  • One's calling in life; a person's occupation; one's profession.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
    • , author=Douglas Larson , title=Runaway Devils Lake , volume=100, issue=1, page=46 , magazine= citation , passage=Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. […] The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.}}
  • General course of action or conduct in life, or in a particular part of it.
    • Washington's career as a soldier
  • (archaic) speed
  • * Wilkins
    • when a horse is running in his full career
  • * 1843 , '', book 3, chapter XIII, ''Democracy
    • It may be admitted that Democracy, in all meanings of the word, is in full career ; irresistible by any Ritter Kauderwalsch or other Son of Adam, as times go.
  • A jouster's path during a joust.
  • * 1819 :
    • These knights, therefore, their aim being thus eluded, rushed from opposite sides betwixt the object of their attack and the Templar, almost running their horses against each other ere they could stop their career .
  • (obsolete) A short gallop of a horse.
  • * 1603 , John Florio, trans. Michel de Montaigne, Essyas , I.48:
    • It is said of Cæsar that in his youth being mounted upon a horse, and without any bridle, he made him run a full cariere [tr. (carriere)], make a sodaine stop, and with his hands behind his backe performe what ever can be expected of an excellent ready horse.
  • (falconry) The flight of a hawk.
  • (obsolete) A racecourse; the ground run over.
  • * Sir Philip Sidney
    • to go back again the same career

    Related terms

    * careerism * careerist

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To move rapidly straight ahead, especially in an uncontrolled way.
    • The car careered down the road, missed the curve, and went through a hedge.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 16, author=Ben Dirs, title=Rugby World Cup 2011: New Zealand 83-7 Japan, work=BBC Sport citation
    • , passage=However, the hosts hit back and hit back hard, first replacement hooker Andrew Hore sliding over, then Williams careering out of his own half and leaving several defenders for dead before flipping the ball to Nonu to finish off a scintillating move.}}

    Synonyms

    (move rapidly straight ahead) careen

    labour

    English

    Alternative forms

    * labor (US)

    Noun

    (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada)
  • Effort expended on a particular task; toil, work.
  • * 1719, (Daniel Defoe), (Robinson Crusoe)
  • That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.
  • * (Richard Hooker) (1554-1600)
    • Being a labour of so great a difficulty, the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for.
  • (uncountable) Workers in general; the working class, the workforce; sometimes specifically the labour movement, organised labour.
  • *, chapter=22
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.}}
  • (uncountable) A political party or force aiming or claiming to represent the interests of labour.
  • The act of a mother giving birth.
  • The time period during which a mother gives birth.
  • (nautical) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.
  • An old measure of land area in Mexico and Texas, approximately 177 acres.
    • (Bartlett)

    Usage notes

    Like many other words ending in -our''/''-or'', this word is spelled ''labour'' in the UK and ''labor'' in the U.S.; in Canada, ''labour'' is preferred, but ''labor'' is not unknown. In Australia, where ''labour'' is the usual spelling, ''labor'' is nonetheless used in the name of the , reflecting the fact that the ''-or endings had some currency in Australia in the past. * Adjectives often used with "labour": physical, mental, technical, organised.

    Synonyms

    *

    Derived terms

    * (The act of a mother giving birth) labour pain

    Verb

    (en-verb) (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada)
  • To toil, to work.
  • To belabour, to emphasise or expand upon (a point in a debate, etc).
    • I think we've all got the idea. There's no need to labour the point.
  • To be oppressed with difficulties or disease; to do one's work under conditions which make it especially hard or wearisome; to move slowly, as against opposition, or under a burden.
  • * Granville
    • the stone that labours up the hill
  • * Alexander Pope
    • The line too labours , and the words move slow.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • to cure the disorder under which he laboured
  • To suffer the pangs of childbirth.
  • (nautical) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.
    • (Totten)

    Related terms

    * laboratory * laborious * labourer * labourite * labour-saving

    External links

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