labor
Usage
What are other ways to say labor?
Labor particularly denotes hard manual work: backbreaking labor; arduous labor. Drudgery suggests continuous, dreary, and dispiriting work, especially of a menial or servile kind: the drudgery of household tasks. Toil suggests wearying or exhausting labor: toil that breaks down the worker's health. Work is the general word and may apply to exertion that is either easy or hard: fun work; heavy work.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“He went from being a nobody no one ever heard of to becoming one of the biggest labor and political leaders in the United States,” said Wheaton.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
China’s dominance may be hard to reverse, as it’s built on lower labor costs and transport infrastructure that enjoys focused government investment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
Casting Luddites as anti-technology has mired a historical labor uprising as a destructive tantrum thrown by fearful, hidebound cranks.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2026
As the number of workers dwindles, he thinks that wages for young people will rise, leading more people to enter the labor force.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
He said looking for work was more worry than a hard day’s labor.
From Full of Beans by Jennifer L. Holm
He labors seven days a week as a construction worker, but goes out dancing every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2026
Much has been said, notably by the critic Harold Bloom, about the agony of the artist who labors under the shadow of the greats.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
In New York, this month brings a wealth of opportunities to appreciate the fruits of these labors, principally at the Museum of Modern Art’s annual festival of film preservation, “To Save and Project.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026
Flynn deserves a break from his heroic theatrical labors, but he’s not done yet.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2024
Even the jaded horsemen would take a respite from their labors to see him, eating their breakfasts outdoors on the benches near the siding.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
Last Thanksgiving, Megan Thee Stallion labored for days to prepare an elaborate holiday dinner for then-boyfriend Klay Thompson and his family.
From Salon ● Apr. 30, 2026
In many years on dairy farms, the worker often labored for 10 hours with no breaks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2026
Initially intriguing, the jumbled chronology eventually proves to be largely decorative until a disappointing late-reel twist explains why the labored device was deployed in the first place.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
Lamarck labored professionally under the modest title of professor of insects and worms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
Most lived near the fields where they labored, far from the main house.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
That, plus his aversion to economic ideology, helped craft a reputation for the Fed as an independent, technocratic institution laboring to do a good job for the American people.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
A quarter-century Jean’s senior, David is trying to finish a stalled book project, laboring in the shadow of his more prolific and successful wife, Ann.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026
We know that underneath, we’re laboring frantically to keep going — sometimes, even just to stay afloat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
They were checking on their fleets of AI assistants to make sure they were still laboring away.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
Blanca was laboring at the computer writing a paper for one of her classes and I wasn’t.
From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez
Vocabulary lists containing labor
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Labor Day Lexicon: Words That Put You To Work
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Working Together: The Language of Unions
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