Slangora

labouring

The British English spelling of 'laboring' — meaning performing hard physical work, or the act of working strenuously.

ləˈbʊɹɪŋCurrent146 viewsLast reviewed Jun 29, 2026+ Add a definition
🇬🇧 British & Irish slang
2 definitions
Community
Seen in the wild
5 citations · last seen May 2026

Seen in the wild

Definitions

UK
#1·Apr 28, 2026UK

The British English spelling of 'laboring' — meaning performing hard physical work, or the act of working strenuously. As a noun, 'labouring' refers to the activity of manual work itself. In the context of skilled trades, 'labouring' can also refer to general unskilled physical assistance on a worksite. The '-our' spelling is standard in UK, Australian, and New Zealand English.

Years of labouring on building sites had left him with a bad back and strong forearms.
Origin: From 'labour' (from Old French labour, from Latin labor, work, toil) + '-ing.' British spelling variant of American 'laboring.' Editorial expansion authored on Slangora.
Was this helpful?

Comments

Show 1 more dictionary-style sense (imported)
UK
#2·Apr 27, 2026UK

The act of one who labours; toil; work done.

Heard in the wild
  • “In other news 13 students have already signed up for my Shakespeare in Adaptation summer course, so it has now become real, I shall be labouring this summer (let's see how many film festival days this will buy me 😆)”

    — Bluesky· May 2026
  • “The foundation stone of this new church was laid by the Bishop of Hexham, with the land purchased between £5k-£6k. It was noted at the time of constructed that almost all Catholics in the parish were Irish engaged in labouring.”

    — Bluesky· May 2026
  • “Martini Ranch - How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self-Culture? (1986) Band featuring Andrew Todd Rosenthal and actor Bill Paxton (!). Three members of Devo are featured on this song. James Cameron directed a video for the band. youtu.be/cnxOY4soITM?...”

    — Bluesky· May 2026
  • “Wow thats a relief! I was labouring under the impression serious mental illness was a major problem. Now I realise that stabbing people is only a priblem when the victims are Jewish....”

    — Bluesky· May 2026
  • “Dreary polemic instead of engaging narrative. Labouring the point, like an 80's agit-prop pub theatre piece.”

    — Bluesky· May 2026
Was this helpful?

Comments

Used in

UK

Have a better definition?

Add your own interpretation of "labouring".

Add definition

Related vocabulary

Variants

🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang

UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.

See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.

Tags

Other words near "labouring" (L)

Browse all slang words starting with L.

Related terms

People also read

Semantically related