labourer
nounUK /ˈleɪ.bə.ɹə/
Etymology From labour + -er.
1
UK standard spelling of laborer.
- This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- By the mid-19th century, the typical village was sharply divided between the landowning class and the landless, voteless and largely illiterate labourers.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 392:
- Derived terms
- colabourer, underlabourer