[f. LABOUR v. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. LABOUR; performance of labor or work; cultivation (of land); † travail of child-bearing; labored or heavy motion, etc.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 6593. That he ne shal … With propre hondis and body also, Gete his fode in laboryng.
1486. Nav. Acc. Hen. VII. (1896), 23. Marriners reteyned for the … laboryng in castyng out of the ballast.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. cxci. 228. There was no labourynge of the yerth.
1524. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 329. The … acte … made against the laboring of writts.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. i. 57. Thou variest no more from picking of Purses, then giuing direction, doth from labouring.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 35 b/2. Some woemen ar as yet not vsed unto the labouringe of childe.
1611. Bible, 2 Macc. ii. 31. To vse breuitie, and auoyde much labouring of the worke.
1619. Visct. Doncaster, Lett., in Eng. & Germ. (Camden), 134. There had beene some … underhand labouring … to promote the Duke of Bavaria.
1644–5. Charles I., Lett., Wks. (1662), 332. There were great labourings to that purpose.
1748. Anson’s Voy., I. v. 56. To render the ships stiffer, and … prevent their labouring in hard gales of wind.
1881. Daily Tel., 28 Jan., 3/3. Apparently taking no notice of the heavy labouring of the brig.
1887. Hall Caine, Deemster, xxiv. 158. He … pressed one hand hard at his breast to quiet the labouring of his heart.
1899. Westm. Gaz., 11 April, 2/1. Doing a bit of dock-side labouring.
attrib. 1601. Shaks., Jul. C., I. i. 4. Vpon a labouring day.
1754. Erskine, Princ. Sc. Law (1809), 356. By labouring time is understood, that time, in which that tenant … is ploughing.
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 55. A slave woman is commonly esteemed least for her laboring qualities.
b. concr. A farm, Sc.
1782. Sir J. Sinclair, Observ. Scot. Dial., 181. A labouring, a farm.
a. 1814. J. Ramsay, Scotl. & Scotsm. in 18th c. (1888), II. ix. 180. My noble hostess took me then [1792] to see her labouring or farm.
