labor of love
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labor of love
Work that is done for pleasure rather than money. Katherine spends all of her free time knitting baby clothes for her friends. It must be a labor of love.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
labor of love
Fig. a task that is either unpaid or badly paid and that one does simply for one's own satisfaction or pleasure or to please someone whom one likes or loves. Jane made no money out of the biography she wrote. She was writing about the life of a friend and the book was a labor of love. Mary hates knitting, but she made a sweater for her boyfriend. What a labor of love.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
labor of love
Work done for one's satisfaction rather than monetary reward. For example, The research took three years but it was a labor of love. This expression appears twice in the New Testament (Hebrews 6:10, Thessalonians 1:3), referring to those who do God's work as a labor of love. [c. 1600]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
a labour of love
COMMON A labour of love is a task that you do because you enjoy it or feel strongly that it is worth doing. Note: `Labour' is spelled `labor' in American English. There is no doubt that his debut novel is a labour of love, and obviously very close to his heart. They concentrated on restoring buildings such as the Victorian greenhouse, an expensive labour of love. Note: This appears in the Bible in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, `Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ'.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
a labour of love
a task done for the love of a person or for the work itself.Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
a ˌlabour of ˈlove
a hard task that you do because you want to, not because it is necessary: This tablecloth is a real labour of love. It took her years to make it.Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
labor of love, a
Work done for the pleasure of accomplishment or from personal interest rather than for monetary reward or from a sense of duty; this book, for example. The phrase appears in two Epistles of St. Paul in the New Testament, one to the Hebrews (6:10) and the other to the Thessalonians (1:3), both referring to the faithful who do God’s work as a labor of love.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer