laborer

noun la·bor·er \ ˈlā-bər-ər \

Updated on: 19 Apr 2018

Definition of laborer

: one that labors; specifically : a person who does unskilled physical work for wages

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Examples of laborer in a Sentence

He has been working as a laborer on a construction project.
having no real skills, the men could only find work as laborers unloading cargo ships

Recent Examples of laborer from the Web

The holiday honors the lives and legacies of civil rights leaders who formed the United Farm Workers Union in the 1960s to protest the poor treatment of laborers.

— diane smith, star-telegram, "Fort Worth students get new holiday to honor César Chávez | Fort Worth Star-Telegram," 11 Apr. 2018
Photo: Safin Hamed/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images A recent effort to locate and recover the remains of 39 Indian laborers murdered by Islamic State threw a brief spotlight on the challenges Iraqi authorities face.

— isabel coles and, WSJ, "Iraq Struggles to Exhume and Identify Slaughtered Victims of Islamic State," 4 Apr. 2018
Of the state’s more than 2 million farm laborers, 1.5 million are undocumented, according to Tom Nassif, President of the Western Growers Association, a 92-year-old industry group representing farmers in California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.

— kartikay mehrotra, Bloomberg.com, "California Fruit Will ‘Die on the Vine’ After ICE Raids, Labor Warns," 2 Mar. 2018
Separately, in the western province of Herat, a Toyota Corolla carrying laborers struck a roadside bomb, leaving at least eight dead, said Abdul Ahad Walizada, a spokesman for the province’s police.

— mujib mashal and fatima faizi, New York Times, "Siege at Kabul Hotel Caps a Violent 24 Hours in Afghanistan," 21 Jan. 2018
Media Concern over the tariff has spread and laborers employed at solar sites across the country are beginning to feel alarmed, says Matt McMullan, a project director in ‎McCarthy Building Companies solar practice.

— justin worland, Time, "A Coal Executive Switched to Building Solar Plants. Now He's Worried Trump Will Hurt His Business," 11 Jan. 2018
Read more: Natalie Farquhar of Port Huron works as a laborer at Center Line Packaging, which is part of FCA's Mopar division.

— eric d. lawrence, Detroit Free Press, "Fiat Chrysler will invest $1B in Warren Truck plant; bring Ram work back from Mexico," 11 Jan. 2018
And some groups that worked together in the ’60s — faith and union leaders — are joining forces again to seek better working conditions for the nation’s laborers.

— adelle m. banks, Houston Chronicle, "Remembering King’s last sermon with renewed hope," 1 Apr. 2018
In Bitter Money, which runs a little under three hours, Wang considers the textile industry in the eastern city of Huzhou, where (according to a final title card) more than 300,000 laborers live.

— ben sachs, Chicago Reader, "Film / Foreign / Money Check out the masterful documentary Bitter Money for an eye-opening lesson in modern Chinese economics," 30 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'laborer.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.