LABOURED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does laboured mean? 

• LABOURED (adjective)
  The adjective LABOURED has 2 senses:

1. lacking natural ease

2. requiring or showing effort

  Familiarity information: LABOURED used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LABOURED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lacking natural ease

Synonyms:

labored; laboured; strained

Context example:

a labored style of debating

Similar:

awkward (lacking grace or skill in manner or movement or performance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Requiring or showing effort

Synonyms:

heavy; labored; laboured

Context example:

the subject made for labored reading

Similar:

effortful (requiring great physical effort)

 Context examples 

I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:—I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The soldier consented, and next day laboured with all his strength, but could not finish it by the evening.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Then there was the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the laboured breathing, the short quick gasps of sudden pain.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

You know yourself how earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I laboured to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for myself.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But there was no peculiar disgrace in this; for it was very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable—Want of sense, either natural or improved—want of elegance—want of spirits—or want of temper.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the abbey.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and laboured politeness: Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His eyes were closed, and he was apparently unconscious; but his mouth was wide open, his breast, heaving as though from suffocation as he laboured noisily for breath.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)