[f. LABOUR v. + -ING2.]
1. That labors or toils; esp. (of persons) performing or engaged in unskilled labor, as in labouring man, population.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IX. xxiv. (1495), 361. In the euentyde labourynge men ben rewarded and payed and goo to reste.
1504. Atkynson, trans. De Imitatione, I. ii. 154. A pore homely laborynge man.
1535. Coverdale, Eccles. v. 12. A labouringe man slepeth swetely, whether it be litle or moch that he eateth.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, XI. i. 121. Labouring Art can neuer ransome nature From her inaydible estate.
1649. Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653), 8. Labouring Countrie people for the most part brew their own Beer.
1671. Milton, P. R., III. 330. Of labouring Pioners A multitude with Spades and Axes arm’d.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 808. The waxen Work of lab’ring Bees.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XII. 526. I … oar’d with lab’ring arms along the flood.
1797. Burke, Reg. Peace, iii. (C. P. S.), 219. We have heard many plans for the relief of the ‘Labouring Poor.’
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xx. IV. 421. Other writers did their best to raise riots among the labouring people.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., 194. The labouring lads often amuse themselves searching for these creatures [bats].
b. Of cattle: Engaged in or used for labor.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., xxv. 49. Laborynge horses and mares.
1715. Leoni, Palladio’s Archit. (1742), I. 57. Stables for labouring Cattle, such as Oxen and Horses.
1807. Robinson, Archæol. Græca, III. xix. 312. The custom of killing laboring oxen.
† 2. Of a woman: Suffering the pangs of childbirth, travailing Also transf. Obs.
1545. Raynold, Byrth Mankynde (? 1564), 61. The midwife shall sit before the labouryng woman.
1680–3. Soame & Dryden, trans. Boileau’s Art of Poetry, III. (Worc.).
| What can an author after this produce? | |
| The labouring mountain must bring forth a mouse. |
a. 1704. T. Brown, Sat. Quack, Wks. 1730, I. 64. Cure hogs of measles, visit labouring swine.
3. Striving or struggling against pressure or some obstacle; that is in trouble or distress; (of the heart, etc.) struggling under emotion or suppressed feeling; also in physical sense, heaving, palpitating; (of a ship) rolling or pitching heavily. (Often with more or less direct reference to 2.)
c. 1425. Found. St. Bartholomew’s (E.E.T.S.), 51. [They] besowght the Apostle that with his woonnte pyte to [? read he] wolde succur this laborynge virgyne.
1586. Marlowe, Jew of Malta, I. ii. I’de passe away my life in penitence,… To make attonement for my labouring soule.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. ii. 163. [The blood] Being all descended to the labouring heart. Ibid. (1604), Oth., II. i. 189. Let the labouring Barke climbe hills of Seas Olympus high.
1693. in Dryden’s Juvenal (1697), 88. When Falern Wines the lab’ring Lungs did fire.
1706. Rowe, Ulyss., II. i. Her labouring Heart is rent with Anguish.
1738. Glover, Leonidas, I. 268. Her lab’ring bosom blotted with her tears.
1814. Scott, Lord of Isles, V. xxx. The vest Drawn tightly o’er his labouring breast.
1850. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), III. xxx. 389. The labouring vessel of the state was guided into port by his policy.
1878. White, Life in Christ, III. xvii. 202. The thought of it weighs more and more heavily on the labouring mind.
† b. Of the moon: Eclipsed. (A Latinism.)
1638. Wilkins, New World, I. (1684), 9. She was able to make noise enough to deliver the labouring Moon.
1665. Glanvill, Scepsis Sci., xix. 122. Nor do the eager clamors of contending Disputants yield any more relief to eclipsed Truth; then did the sounding Brass of old to the labouring Moon.
[1667. Milton, P. L., II. 665. While the labouring Moon Eclipses at thir charms.]
4. Labouring oar: the oar that requires the most labor to work it; hence fig. esp. in phr. To pull, tug, ply the labouring oar: to take a great or arduous share of the work.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, V. 157. Three Trojans tug at ev’ry lab’ring Oar.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 141, ¶ 1. I shall still let the labouring Oar be managed by my Correspondents.
1779. Hume, Dial. conc. Nat. Rel., XI. (ad fin.), II. 443. Tug the labouring oar.
1894. W. B. Carpenter, Son of Man among Sons of Men, iv. 106. They vainly ply the labouring oar.
1900. G. C. Brodrick, Mem. & Impressions, 386. Having found it difficult to pull a labouring oar on the City Council, without neglecting other duties.
Hence Labouringly adv., laboriously.
1862. Lytton, Strange Story, II. 276. Reason is coming back to her—slowly, labouringly.
