overlabour
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
overlabour (uncountable)
- excessive labour
- 1684, John Dryden, The History of the League, translation of Histoire de la Ligue by Louis Maimbourg:
- a disease which he had brought upon himself, by his over-labour at a Siege
Verb edit
overlabour (third-person singular simple present overlabours, present participle overlabouring, simple past and past participle overlaboured)
- (transitive) To cause to labour excessively; to overwork.
- 1697, Virgil, “The Second Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- over-labour'd with so long a course,
'Tis time to set at ease the smoking horse
- (transitive) To labour upon excessively; to refine unduly.
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “overlabour”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)