labor

労働

努力を要する仕事、特に体を使ってする仕事。

やさしい英語で： Work that requires effort, especially work done with your body.

• The job involves heavy labor.
• Labor costs increased during construction.
• They saved money by doing all the labor themselves.

類義語： work, toil

よく使う表現： manual labor, hard labor, labor costs

労働力、労働者

働く人々をまとめて指す言葉で、特に体を使って働く人々。

やさしい英語で： Workers considered as a group, especially people who do physical work.

• The farm needs more labor.
• A shortage of skilled labor delayed the project.
• Management and labor agreed on a new contract.

類義語： workforce, workers

よく使う表現： skilled labor, labor shortage, labor force

陣痛、分娩

出産前から出産中にかけて、筋肉の収縮で赤ちゃんを押し出す過程。

やさしい英語で： The process before and during birth, when muscles push the baby out of the mother’s body.

• She is in labor.
• Her labor lasted six hours.
• The midwife helped her through the early stages of labor.

使い方： be in labor (She was in labor when we reached the hospital.); go into labor (My sister went into labor last night.)

類義語： childbirth

よく使う表現： in labor, go into labor, early labor

労働党

労働者やその利益に関わる政党の名前。

やさしい英語で： The name of a political party connected with workers and their interests.

• Labor won the election.
• She voted for Labor last year.
• The Labor government announced its new policy.

よく使う表現： Labor Party, Labor government, vote Labor

骨折って働く、苦労する

多くの労力をかけて、しばしば長時間働くこと。

やさしい英語で： To work very hard, often for a long time.

• They labor in the fields.
• She labored over the difficult homework.
• We labored all morning to repair the fence.

使い方： labor over something (He labored over the report for several days.); labor to do something (They labored to clear the fallen trees.)

類義語： toil, work hard

反対語： rest

よく使う表現： labor over something, labor in something, labor all day

くどく説明する

必要以上に説明したり、同じことを繰り返したりすること。

やさしい英語で： To explain or repeat something more than is needed.

• Please do not labor the point.
• He labored the argument until everyone lost interest.
• You are laboring a point we already understand.

類義語： belabor

よく使う表現： labor the point, labor an argument, labor the obvious