labourer, laborer
(ˈleɪbərə(r))
[f. labour v. + -er1.]
One who labours.
1. One who performs physical labour as a service or for a livelihood; spec. one who does work requiring chiefly bodily strength or aptitude and little skill or training, as distinguished, e.g., from an artisan (often with defining word prefixed, as agricultural, bricklayer's, dock, farm, mason's labourer, etc.).
Statute of Labourers: the mod. designation of the statute De Servientibus (23 Edw. III), regulating the rate of wages.
| c 1325 Poem temp. Edw. II (Percy) lxv, A wreched laborer That lyveth by hys hond. 1390 Gower Conf. III. 6 It maketh me drawe out of the way In solein place by my selve, As doth a laborer to delve. 1442–3 Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 275 Will'o Harpur laborere laboranti infra Infirmariam, 7s. 7d. 1470–85 Malory Arthur iii. xi. 113 As Kynge Pellinore rode in that valey he met with a poure man a labourer. 1513 Douglas æneis iv. xi. 91 With fire and swerd to persew and doun thring The laboraris [L. colonos] descend from Dardanus. 1543 tr. Act 23 Edw. III heading, Here begynnethe the Statute of Labourers. 1548 Act 2 & 3 Edw. VI, c. 15 §4 No Person..shall..let or disturb any..Brickmaker, Tilemaker, Plummer or Labourer. 1590 Greene Neuer too late (1600) 119 The labourer to the fields his plough-swaynes guides. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1780) F ff 4, Travailleurs, the ordinary, or labourers, &c. employed to assist in fitting out shipping for the sea. 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Perth 342 Common labourers earn between one shilling and one shilling and three pence a-day. 1847 James Convict xx, I am a labourer by trade. 1878 Jevons Primer Pol. Econ. 71 Bricklayers' labourers refuse..to raise bricks to the upper parts of a building by a rope and winch. 1891 Daily News 1 Sept. 3/1 An intelligent villager—not a labourer, but a man of the working-class. |
† b. Mil.
| 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. V 56 b, The pyoners cast trenches and the laborers brought tymber. Ibid., Hen. VIII 114 Of bill men five. M. of pioners and laborers .ii. M. .vi. C. |
c. labourer-in-trust: one of a number of officers (ranking next below the ‘clerks of works’) who formed part of the staff employed for the repairs of the royal palaces. The office ceased to exist in 1824.
| 1853 W. Jerdan Autobiog. IV. 52 He became what is called a labourer-in-trust on the establishment which has the charge of the Royal palaces. 1884 Trans. Lond. & Middlesex Archæol. Soc. VI. 486 Mr. Adam Lee, the Labourer-in-Trust of the Houses of Parliament. |
2. gen. One who does work of any kind, a worker.
| a 1420 Hoccleve De Reg. Princ. 1348 Swych laborer þe kythe heere in þys lyf, Þat god þi soule,.. Reioise may. c 1511 1st Eng. Bk. Amer. (Arb.) 33/1 They be..great labourers. 1562 Child Marriages (1897) 97 The said Ellin was taken for an honest wenche and a good laborer. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 55 Which Kine are of the smallest body, and yet the greatest labourers. 1611 Bible Luke x. 7 The labourer is worthy of his hire. 1785 Paley Mor. Philos. Wks. 1825 IV. 25 To the labourer, every interruption is a refreshment. 1841 Trench Parables ix. (1877) 176 In the kingdom of heaven it is God who seeks his labourers, and not they who seek Him. |
3. One of the class among colonial insects that performs the work of the community; a ‘worker’.
| 1601 Shakes. All's Well i. ii. 67 Since I nor wax nor honie can bring home, I quickly were dissolued from my hiue To giue some Labourers roome. 1781 Smeathman in Phil. Trans. LXXI. 145 The working insects, which, for brevity, I shall generally call labourers. 1834 McMurtrie Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. 430 The neuters or labourers..as to size, are intermediate between the males and females. |
Hence † labouress, a female labourer.
| 1570 in Gutch Coll. Cur. II. 10 For Clementes paynes in the kychen a daye, laberess. 1809 Spirit Publ. Jrnls. (1810) XIII. 164 Two other fellow-labouresses. |