Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society by Raymond Williams

Author:Raymond Williams [Williams, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1975-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

L

LABOUR

Among the two earliest examples of the use of labour in English are ‘bigin a laboure … and make a toure’ and ‘quit o labur, and o soru’ (both c. 1300). These two senses, of work and of pain or trouble, were already closely associated in fw labor, oF, laborem, L; the rw is uncertain but may be related to slipping or staggering under a burden. As a verb labour had a common sense of ploughing or working the land, but it was also extended to other kinds of manual work and to any kind of difficult effort. A labourer was primarily a manual worker: ‘a wreched laborer that lyveth by hys hond’ (c. 1325). The sense of labour as pain was applied to childbirth from C16. The general sense of hard work and difficulty was well summed up in Milton’s

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