labour: [13] Labour comes via Old French labour from Latin labor. This has been linked with the verb labāre ‘slip’, and if the two were related it would mean that the underlying etymological meaning of labour was something like ‘stumble under a burden’. Most of the modern European descendants of Latin labor have progressed from the broad sense ‘work, exertion’ to more specialized meanings – French labourer denotes ‘plough’, for instance, and Spanish labrar ‘plough, carve, embroider’, etc. English has retained it as a formal alternative to work, although the additional obstetric sense developed in the 16th century.
