What is the difference between toil and labour?
toil | labour |
labour, work
* 1908:
trouble, strife
A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey; usually in the plural.
* Denham
* Dryden
To labour; work.
To struggle.
To work (something); often with out .
* Holland
* Milton
To weary through excessive labour.
* Shakespeare
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)
(uncountable) Workers in general; the working class, the workforce; sometimes specifically the labour movement, organised labour.
*, chapter=22
, title= (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.
To toil, to work.
To belabour, to emphasise or expand upon (a point in a debate, etc).
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
* Alexander Pope
* Sir Walter Scott
To suffer the pangs of childbirth.
(nautical) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.
Labour is a synonym of toil.
In intransitive terms the difference between toil and labour
is that toil is to struggle while labour is to toil, to work.In transitive terms the difference between toil and labour
is that toil is to weary through excessive labour while labour is to belabour, to emphasise or expand upon (a point in a debate, etc).As a proper noun Labour is
Short for the Labour Party.toil
English
Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Noun
(en noun)- ...he set to work again and made the snow fly in all directions around him. After some further toil his efforts were rewarded, and a very shabby door-mat lay exposed to view.
- As a Numidian lion, when first caught, / Endures the toil that holds him.
- Then toils for beasts, and lime for birds, were found.
Verb
(en verb)- places well toiled and husbanded
- [I] toiled out my uncouth passage.
- toiled with works of war
Synonyms
* , (l)See also
* toil and moilAnagrams
* ----labour
English
Alternative forms
* labor (US)Noun
(UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada)- Being a labour of so great a difficulty, the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for.
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.}}
- (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 painVerb
(en-verb) (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada)- I think we've all got the idea. There's no need to labour the point.
- the stone that labours up the hill
- The line too labours , and the words move slow.
- to cure the disorder under which he laboured
- (Totten)