labour1 British EnglishBrE, labor American English ●●○ S3 W3 AWL noun 1 work 工作 [uncountableU]WORK/DO WORK work, especially physical work 劳动;〔尤指〕体力劳动 The garage charges £30 an hour for labour. 汽车修理厂收取每小时30英镑的人工费。
Many women do hard manual labour (=work with their hands). 许多妇女从事繁重的体力劳动。
Workers withdrew their labour (=protested by stopping work) for twenty-four hours. 工人罢工24小时。
→ hard labour 2 workers 劳动者 [uncountableU]WORKER all the people who work for a company or in a country 〔一公司或一国的全体〕劳工,工人;劳动力 a shortage of skilled labor 熟练工人短缺
We need to reduce our labour costs. 我们需要降低劳动力成本。
3 baby 婴儿 [singular, uncountableU]BABY/HAVE A BABY the process of giving birth to a baby 分娩;产程in labour Meg was in labour for ten hours. 梅格分娩用了十小时。
Diane went into labour at 2 o'clock. 黛安娜两点钟开始分娩。
a long/short/difficult labour 产程长/产程短/难产
The labour pains were unbearable. 分娩时的阵痛难以忍受。
labour ward/room (=a room in a hospital where women give birth) 产房
4. a labour of love LIKE somebody OR somethingsomething that is hard work but that you do because you want to 心甘情愿所做的苦工a labour of love• For Joan it has been a labour of love and provides an amusing and detailed insight into medicine in the town.• It is a labour of love by Professor A. G. Toth and primarily for specialists.• But for Mavis Hindmarsh and her team of volunteers furniture removal is a labour of love.• Male speaker It's a labour of love looking after Dinmore.• But then it was a labour of love.• Compiling such a list was a labour of love - too pleasurable an activity to pursue in office hours.• Mervyn Gowell was a fitter at the plant and says that working on the Meteor was a labour of love.• David Croft and Jimmy Perry's sitcom was a labour of love. 5 somebody’s labours formalWORK HARD a period of hard work 某人的辛勤劳动 After several hours' gardening, we sat down to admire the results of our labours. 在花园里干了几个小时以后,我们坐下来欣赏自己的劳动成果。
COLLOCATIONS – Meaning 2: all the people who work for a company or in a country 〔一公司或一国的全体〕劳工,工人;劳动力ADJECTIVES/NOUN + labourskilled/unskilled labour 熟练/非熟练工人Employers want to keep skilled labour because of the cost of training. 考虑到培训成本,雇主希望把熟练工人留下来。
cheap labour (=workers who have low wages) 廉价劳动力Women and children were used as cheap labour. 妇女儿童被用作廉价劳动力。
casual labour (=workers who do jobs that are not permanent) 临时工The industry makes use of a large supply of casual labour. 该行业雇用大量临时工。
child labour 童工nThe shoe company was accused of using child labour in its factory.
slave labour 做苦役的奴隶nCotton was grown using slave labor.
labour + NOUNthe labour force (=all the people who work in a country or for a company) 劳动力We need an educated labour force. 我们需要受过教育的劳动力。
the labour supply (=all the people available to work) 劳动力供应What was the effect of the war on the labour supply? 那场战争对劳动力供应有何影响?
the labour market (=the people looking for work and the jobs available) 劳动力市场the percentage of women in the labour market 妇女在劳动力市场中的百分比
a labour shortage 劳动力短缺nImmigrants came into the country to fill the labour shortage.
labour costs 劳动力成本nThere was pressure to keep down labour costs.