labor

Forms

labor f (plural labores)^[1] Old Spanish wrote lavor or lauor.^[2][3] The spelling labor with ⟨b⟩ prevails from the late 15th century.^[2][3] Asturian has llabor, and the Lena dialect tsabor.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish lavor, inherited from Latin labor (“toil, work, task”).^[2][5][6][1] Corominas notes that the word was clearly popular in the Middle Ages and that its sound development is that of an inherited word: ⟨lavor⟩ is the spelling of the Cid, Berceo and the early documents.^[2] As the figurative senses gained ground, the influence of Latin changed the ⟨v⟩ to ⟨b⟩, as Nebrija already writes it.^[2]

The same Latin word gives Portuguese lavor, Galician labor, Asturian llabor, Catalan llavor (“seed”), Italian lavoro and Basque labore (“harvest, grain”).^[4][7][2] The Catalan sense “seed” grew out of Latin “field labour” and “its produce” in the Vulgar Latin of Hispania.^[8]

The Latin noun had an older nominative labos, common in Plautus.^[9][10] It is often connected with labō (“to totter”), through “nearly collapsing under a load”, then “burden” and “labour”, but de Vaan finds this unconvincing.^[9] Wiktionary mentions a possible root Proto-Indo-European *leb- (“to seize, take”) beside it, and calls the semantic link weak in either case.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1030 with the form lavor.^[2][5] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the plural for the fields and works of the land: the people of Castejón open the gates por ver sus lavores e todas sus heredades “to see their fields and all their estates”.^[11] The first hit without a later copy is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250): De aquel que sobre agena lauor entrare “of him who enters another's tilled land”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the first centuries the word covered any kind of work, material or spiritual, literal or figurative.^[2] By the end of the Middle Ages it tended to specialise in farm work (Nebrija: labor de pan “agriculture”) and in work on cloth, such as embroidery.^[2] Alfonso X already uses it for both: the Romans excel at weaving sotiles lauores, and a stone brings luck en caça & lauor de tierra “in hunting and tilling”.^[12] The Fueros de Aragón of about 1300 and Berceo use it for grain, the produce of the land, a sense that did not take root in Castilian but became the Catalan “seed”.^[2]

Covarrubias in 1611 stresses that Castilian labor differs from Latin labor “toil”: it is the same as opus, a work, and is said of women's needlework, so that ir a la labor means going to the needlework teacher.^[13] The Academy defined the school where girls learnt needlework in 1817, and gave the Latin etymology in 1884.^[14][15] The administrative formula sus labores describes a woman without paid work, who keeps her own house.^[16][17]

In Guatemala and El Salvador labor is a small farm, and in northern Mexico a cultivated field and an old land measure.^[18][19] In Argentina Garzón recorded it as masculine too, especially for an ornament or needlework.^[20]

Timeline

• 1030 – a charter has the form lavor.^[2][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses lavores for tilled fields.^[11]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, the first hit without a later copy.^[11]
• 1259 – Alfonso X uses lauores for woven ornaments.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija writes labor with ⟨b⟩ and glosses labor de pan as “agriculture”.^[2][21]
• 1532 – the first record in the Americas, in Mexico, for designs made on the skin with a blade and black ink.^[22]
• 1541 – Pero Mejía writes alabor, with the article run into the word.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records hazer labor and ir a la labor for needlework.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy records the school where girls learnt needlework.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin labor.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. work: the action and the result of working: Los vecinos agradecieron la labor de los voluntarios.^[6][1]
2. (often in the plural) An ornament woven or made by hand on cloth, or worked in another way on other things.^[6]
3. needlework: sewing, embroidery and the like.^[6][1][16]
4. (often in the plural) tillage, especially of sown land; also the other farm operations.^[6]
5. Each ploughing or digging given to the soil.^[6]
6. Among tile and brick makers, a thousand pieces.^[6]
7. (often in the plural) Each group of products made in tobacco factories.^[6]
8. The eggs of the silkworm.^[6]
9. (dated) A school where girls learnt needlework.^[6]
10. (mining) An excavation.^[6]
11. (Guatemala, El Salvador) A small farm.^[18]

Word family

• laborear
• laboreo
• laborío
• laboral

Related words

• laborar
• laborioso
• labrar
• labranza
• labrador
• colaborar
• elaborar
• Portuguese lavor
• Catalan llavor

Usage notes

Labor has always been feminine, though archaic texts from Burgos and above all León have it as masculine, like Portuguese lavor; the feminine article was sometimes run into the word (alabor, 1541).^[2] The phrase estar por la labor means to be willing to do something.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 545
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. labor
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3686
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. labor
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. labor
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 108
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. labor
12. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. labor
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1058
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 513
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 624
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. labor
17. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. labor
18. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 498
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 651
20. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 271
21. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. labor
22. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. labor