1. (n.) Physical toil or bodily exertion, especially when fatiguing, irksome, or unavoidable, in distinction from sportive exercise; hard, muscular effort directed to some useful end, as agriculture, manufactures, and like; servile toil; exertion; work.

2. (n.) Intellectual exertion; mental effort; as, the labor of compiling a history.

3. (n.) That which requires hard work for its accomplishment; that which demands effort.

4. (n.) Travail; the pangs and efforts of childbirth.

5. (n.) Any pang or distress.

6. (n.) The pitching or tossing of a vessel which results in the straining of timbers and rigging.

7. (n.) A measure of land in Mexico and Texas, equivalent to an area of 177/ acres.

8. (n.) To exert muscular strength; to exert one's strength with painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to work; to toil.

9. (n.) To exert one's powers of mind in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains.

10. (n.) To be oppressed with difficulties or disease; to do one's work under conditions which make it especially hard, wearisome; to move slowly, as against opposition, or under a burden; to be burdened; -- often with under, and formerly with of.

11. (n.) To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth.

12. (n.) To pitch or roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea.

13. (v. t.) To work at; to work; to till; to cultivate by toil.

14. (v. t.) To form or fabricate with toil, exertion, or care.

15. (v. t.) To prosecute, or perfect, with effort; to urge strenuously; as, to labor a point or argument.

16. (v. t.) To belabor; to beat.