a. [f. LABOUR sb. + -SOME.]
† 1. Given to labor; hard-working; = LABORIOUS 1. Obs.
1551. Edw. VI., Pol. Ess., Lit. Rem. (1857), II. 481. So ought ther no part of the commenwealth to be but laborsom in his vocation.
1575–85. Abp. Sandys, Serm., iii. 46. The vineyard that shall fructifie must fall into the hands of a skilful and laboursome husbandman.
1607. Markham, Caval., I. (1617), 79. The braine of a man being a busie and laborsome workemaister. Ibid. (1620), Farew. Husb., II. xvii. (1668), 75. Although it [the ant] be but a little creature, yet it is so laboursome, that [etc.].
2. Requiring, entailing or accompanied by labor; = LABORIOUS 2. Now rare or dial.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., II. 28/1. The painefull diligence, and the laboursome industrie of a famous lettered man M. Peter White.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 33. Those studies, which seeme laborsome in youthfull yeares, are made right pleasant rest vnto old age.
1602. Shaks., Ham., I. ii. 59 (Qo. 1604). Hath … wroung from me my slow leaue, By laboursome petition.
1611. Coryat, Crudities, 350. A way … very laboursome and painfull to trauell.
1656. Earl Monm., Advt. fr. Parnass., 150. The laborsom journey which leads towards the obtaining of Supreme Honors and Dignities.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., s.v., We have a lang laboursome hill to climm.
1898. Trask, Norton-sub-Hamdon, 33. Life was laboursome, but not without hope.
† b. Of land: Difficult of cultivation, Obs.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, IV. ii. 208. The like hath God done for this land so rough and laboursome, giving it great riches in mines.
3. Of a ship: ‘Subject to labour or to pitch and roll violently in a heavy sea’ (1850 Rudim. Nav., 128).
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 127. What makes a Ship Roll and laboursome in the Sea?
1764. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 80/1. Most … died in the passage, it beng so very long, and the ship so very laboursome.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, II. 336. The … topsail should be the last … sail taken in, in a laboursome ship.
Hence Labo(u)rsomely adv., laboriously; Laboursomeness, laboriousness.
1552. Edw. VI., Jrnl., Lit. Rem. (1857), II. 420. They had … passed many a strait very painfully and laborsomly.
1561. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573), 68 b. ‘And they have no rest, &c.,’ signifie not any laboursomnes or paynefulnes, but a continual holdyng on and tunable agrement in praysing God.
1592. R. D., Hypnerotomachia, 6 b. Which immence … forme … mounting up laboursomly foote by foote, conteyned 1410 degrees or steppes.
1880. Rhoda Broughton, Second Th., I. I. ix. 152. It seems as if to each breath a heavy stone were tied, so laboursomely does he drag it up.
