LABORING Synonyms: 85 Similar and Opposite Words

laboring

verb

present participle of labor

as in struggling

to devote serious and sustained effort the young lawyer labored most of the weekend over the difficult legal brief

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of laboring While practicing for a sixth straight day, laboring in a heat index pushing 90 degrees, the Chiefs were bound to be a bit ill-mannered. — Blair Kerkhoff, Kansas City Star, 8 Aug. 2026 Complicated births that require, for example, extended time laboring will now be differentiated and might cost more, while uncomplicated births will cost less. — Camille A. Clare, STAT, 23 July 2026 Since the Computing Community Consortium hosted its first conference on thermodynamic computing in 2019, a small community of researchers has been laboring to put it into practice. — Quanta Magazine, 15 July 2026 But others are still at work, laboring under a new collective bargaining agreement with another labor organization, the International Longshoremen’s Association. — Talia Soglin, Chicago Tribune, 5 July 2026 The infant had been trapped for almost three days; a team of rescuers from Fairfax, Virginia, had been laboring to reach the boy, who was nine months old, for at least six hours. — Armando Ledezma, New Yorker, 30 June 2026 In the days since posting the news, Mitchell has continued to update her followers about the aftermath and the start of the healing process, including videos of herself laboring. — Tabitha Parent, PEOPLE, 23 June 2026 Mercurius began laboring in the third and left after Hull's second homer of the CWS and ninth of the season leading off the fifth. — ABC News, 21 June 2026 The woodcut birth figures contained in these books were not images drawn from observation—pregnant cadavers for anatomical drawing were hard to come by—but were instead abstracted diagrams of the chaotic diversity of laboring bodies. — Literary Hub, 16 June 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for laboring

Verb

The papers served to underline how central banks are struggling to keep up with challenges introduced by technology.

— Maria Eloisa Capurro, Fortune, 29 Aug. 2026
The longer the current situation continues, the greater the strain on an economy already struggling with shortages, inflation and restrictions on trade.

— Hamidreza Azizi, Time, 29 Aug. 2026

Definition of struggling

Verb

However, instead of a conservative regression, Dressen has noticed institutions striving to adopt more innovative practices on a number of levels.

— Devorah Lauter, ARTnews.com, 28 Aug. 2026
But a home that cannot absorb something deeply meaningful is striving for taste at the expense of inauthenticity.

— Steven Weill, Architectural Digest, 26 Aug. 2026

Definition of striving

Verb

Other areas of concern are the library system's self-check-out kiosks, instances in which minor teenagers handle materials while working or volunteering at a branch, and platforms for loaning electronic materials, Adams said.

— Joseph Flaherty, Arkansas Online, 28 Aug. 2026
Now his focus is on following in his parents’ footsteps working with the Children’s Institute, an organization that supports children and families.

— Marlene Lenthang, NBC news, 28 Aug. 2026

Definition of working

Verb

The White House is endeavoring to smash the Guinness World Record for the largest-ever pyrotechnic display by shooting off 50 times more fireworks than last year.

— Char Miller, Time, 30 June 2026
By unionizing, the group is additionally endeavoring to ensure greater job protections, more transparency about pay and promotion standards, and have more of a say in the corporate environment.

— Katie Kilkenny, HollywoodReporter, 16 June 2026

Definition of endeavoring

Verb

To watch someone toiling away in the service of something great is not, in the end, so very different from watching someone toiling away in the service of something terrible.

— Becca Rothfeld, New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2026
Many of them had saved money while toiling as farmworkers, cooks, custodians and construction workers.

— Ruben Vives, Los Angeles Times, 29 Aug. 2026

Definition of toiling

Browse Nearby Words

labor forces

laboring

laborious

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“Laboring.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/laboring. Accessed 1 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of laboring

verb

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