labor-, laborat-

Work and study.

Motto of Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri, USA.

An individual whose professional concerns lie in the laboratory rather than in clinical areas.

The title applies to professional workers across a spectrum of educational levels.

1. A workplace for the conduct of scientific research or where research and testing is carried out.
2. A room or place with appropriate equipment for teaching science or doing scientific work.
3. A place where drugs and chemicals are manufactured, examined, and tested.
4. A place equipped for performing experimental work or investigative procedures, for the preparation of drugs, chemicals, etc.
5. A region (geographic, etc.) resembling a laboratory inasmuch as it offers opportunities for observation, practice, and experimentation.
6. Any place, situation, set of conditions, or the like, conducive to experimentation, investigation, observation, etc.; anything suggestive of a scientific laboratory.
7. Etymology: Although "laboratory" looks very much like the Latin laboratorium, "a place to labor, a work place"; the word "laboratory" came from the extended Latin elaborare, "to work out", as a problem, and "with great pains"; as evidenced by the Old English spelling "elaboratory"; designating "a place where learned effort was applied to the solution of scientific problems".

It should be noted that such an etymological perspective could not be found in any other dictionary. In fact, other sources state the following similar information: from 1605, "a building set apart for scientific experiments", from Middle Latin laboratorium, "a place for labor or work"; from Latin laboratus, past participle form of laborare, "to work". The shortened form lab was first attested in 1895.

1. Done with obvious effort or difficulty; such as, labored breathing or labored walking.
2. Lacking natural ease and grace: "He was a speaker who made many unnecessary labored repetitions and hesitations."
3. Exhibiting a great deal of effort; lacking grace, fluency, or spontaneity.

1. Someone who is engaged in work which may require more bodily strength than skill or training.
2. Anyone who works with his/her hands, and so, who is engaged in manual labor.

Technological progress has lead to an increasing segment of manual labor requiring more training or even theoretical insight because it generally includes the use of machinery which includes more training for effective producion.

1. Doing arduous or unpleasant work.
2. Exerting one's powers of body or mind; especially, with painful or strenuous effort.
3. Moving with great effort: "The truck labored up the hill."
4. To be laboring during the birth of a child, or children.
5. Suffering from some disadvantage or distress; such as, laboring under considerable stress.

1. Characterized by a toilsome endeavor to the point of exhaustion; especially, physical effort: Jane and Jim had to spend a great deal of laborious effort remodeling their new apartment.
2. A reference to requiring long, hard work: William spent many laborious hours on the construction project and it is still not completed. © ALL rights are reserved.
© ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.

Relating to a great expenditure of effort, or in a manner requiring much work or difficulty: The lives of the staff were spent in making decisions for others to execute on the basis of data laboriously gathered and analyzed for them

1. Requiring extended effort.
2. Involving or characterized by hard or toilsome effort.

1. When capitalized, it refers to a member or supporter of a Labor Party; as in Australia, Britain, etc.
2. When written in the lower case, "laborite" refers to a member or supporter of a labor union or a labor movement.

All of the efforts and hard labor that have been involved while doing a particular piece of work, or a project.

Nothing without great labor.

Motto of the Brooklyn College (City University of New York), Brooklyn, New York, USA. It is also translated as, "Nothing without great toil."

I do not refuse work.

Motto of Dover College, U.K.

By prayer and by labor.

Motto of Rugby School, U.K.

A four-letter word that is avoided by many people: work quotes.