Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LA'BOR, v.i. [L. laboro.]

1. To exert muscular strength; to act or move with painful effort, particularly in servile occupations; to work; to toil. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work. Exod. xx.
2. To exert one's powers of body or mind, or both, in the prosecution of any design; to strive; to take pains. Labor not for the meat which perisheth. John vi.
3. To toil; to be burdened. Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. – Matth. xi.
4. To move with difficulty. The stone that labors up the hill. – Glanville.
5. To move irregularly with little progress; to pitch and roll heavily, as a ship in a turbulent sea. – Mar. Dict.
6. To be in distress; to be pressed. As sounding cymbals aid the laboring moon. – Dryden.
7. To be in travail; to suffer the pangs of childbirth.
8. To journey or march. Make not all the people to labor thither. – Josh. vii.
9. To perform the duties of the pastoral office. – 1 Tim. v.
10. To perform Christian offices. To labor under, to be afflicted with; to be burdened or distressed with; as, to labor under a disease or an affliction.