belabour

Etymology

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

verb

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To labour about; labour over; to work hard upon; to ply diligently.
  2. (transitive) To beat or thump (someone) soundly.
    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.
  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.
    And so, to belabour the school metaphor, diehard fans of both those fallen leaders resent this pair for snitching in class. 2023-08-08, Janan Ganesh, “The oneness of Ron DeSantis and Rishi Sunak”, in Financial Times

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