Belabour
verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To labour about; labour over; to work hard upon; to ply diligently. UK, obsolete, transitive
- 2 attack verbally with harsh criticism wordnet
- 3 To beat or thump (someone) soundly. UK, transitive
"1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling He saw the village; he was seen coming bending forward upon his horse, belabouring it with great blows, the girths dripping with blood."
- 4 beat soundly wordnet
- 5 To attack (someone) verbally. UK, transitive
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- 6 to work at or to absurd length wordnet
- 7 To discuss or explain (something) excessively or repeatedly; to harp on or overelaborate. UK, transitive
"1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, inaugural speech Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us."
Example
More examples"1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling He saw the village; he was seen coming bending forward upon his horse, belabouring it with great blows, the girths dripping with blood."
Etymology
From be- (“on, upon, about, over”) + labour. Compare bework, betoil, beswink.
Related phrases
More for "belabour"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.