Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LA'BOR-ING, ppr.

1. Exerting muscular strength or intellectual power; toiling; moving with pain or with difficulty; cultivating.
2. A laboring man, or laborer, is often used for a man who performs work that requires no apprenticeship or professional skill, in distinction from an artisan; but this restricted sense is not always observed. A hard laboring man, is one accustomed to hard labor. Laboring oar, the oar which requires the most strength or exertion, or on which most depends.