belabour

• (US spelling) belabor

From be- (“about, around”) +‎ labour. Compare bework, betoil, beswink.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɪˈleɪ.bə/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪbə(ɹ)

belabour (third-person singular simple present belabours, present participle belabouring, simple past and past participle belaboured) (British spelling)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To labour about; labour over; to work hard upon; to ply diligently.
2. (transitive) To beat or thump (someone) soundly.

   Synonyms: buffet, thrash

   • 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.

   • 1881, Walter Besant, James Rice, “How Kitty First Saw the Doctor”, in The Chaplain of the Fleet […], volume I, London: Chatto and Windus, […], →OCLC, part I (Within the Rules), page 82:

     [F]ew country people there are who do not love to see two sturdy fellows thwack and belabour each other with quarter-staff, single-stick, or fists.

3. (transitive) To attack (someone) verbally.
4. (transitive) To discuss or explain (something) excessively or repeatedly; to harp on or overelaborate.
   • 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, inaugural speech

     Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us.

   • 2023 August 8, Janan Ganesh, “The oneness of Ron DeSantis and Rishi Sunak”, in Financial Times‎:

     And so, to belabour the school metaphor, diehard fans of both those fallen leaders resent this pair for snitching in class.