“Labored” or “Laboured”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 2 prefer “labored” and 6 prefer “laboured”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	labored	laboured	Preference
United States	97	3	“labored”
United Kingdom	17	83	“laboured”
India	24	76	“laboured”
Philippines	91	9	“labored”
Canada	37	63	“laboured”
Australia	19	81	“laboured”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	0	100	“laboured”
New Zealand	0	100	“laboured”
Jamaica	0	0	Not enough data
Trinidad & Tobago	0	0	Not enough data
Guyana	0	0	Not enough data

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“labored”

She has indeed labored, and is heavily laden, but…
…zeal and fidelity, he has labored in the noble work of…
Arfe labored on it from 1517–1524, on…
…it all up — he labored diligently for the Roman Catholic…
Euthymius labored as abbot of the Iveron…
…and Aroostook and her consorts labored four hours before they refloated…
Here they labored, building a new mission house…
…coordination, digestive and excretory disorders, labored breathing, racing heartbeat and frequently
The prisoners who labored there—Jews from Warsaw, Leipzig, Salzburg,…
After that, she labored as a teacher during 35…

“laboured”

…the Labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all…
…is known, but without any laboured splendour of language or affected…
He laboured from 1679 to 1681 to…
…and am sorry that you laboured under any mistake on account…
…England, went to Australia and laboured for thirty-two years in Queensland.
…rattles, lumbering ponderously from one laboured scene to another".
…"melodies wane and lyrics become laboured on later tracks" such as
At this work he laboured for several years with great…
The sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create…
…dream for which he had laboured so hard the provision of…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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