belabour

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English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From be- (about, around) +‎ labour. Compare bework, betoil, beswink.

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

belabour (third-person singular simple present belabours, present participle belabouring, simple past and past participle belaboured) (British spelling)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To labour about; labour over; to work hard upon; to ply diligently.
  2. (transitive) To beat or thump (someone) soundly.
    Synonyms: buffet, thrash
    • 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
      He saw the village; he was seen coming bending forward upon his horse, belabouring it with great blows, the girths dripping with blood.
    • 1881, Walter Besant, James Rice, “How Kitty First Saw the Doctor”, in The Chaplain of the Fleet [], volume I, London: Chatto and Windus, [], →OCLC, part I (Within the Rules), page 82:
      [F]ew country people there are who do not love to see two sturdy fellows thwack and belabour each other with quarter-staff, single-stick, or fists.
  3. (transitive) To attack (someone) verbally.
  4. (transitive) To discuss or explain (something) excessively or repeatedly; to harp on or overelaborate.
    • 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, inaugural speech
      Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us.
    • 2023 August 8, Janan Ganesh, “The oneness of Ron DeSantis and Rishi Sunak”, in Financial Times[1]:
      And so, to belabour the school metaphor, diehard fans of both those fallen leaders resent this pair for snitching in class.

Translations[edit]