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or labor from (any one), by exaction or oppression; as, to sweat a spendthrift; to sweat laborers. [Colloq.] To sweat coin, to remove a portion of a piece of coin, as by shaking it with others in a bag, so that the friction wears off a small quantity of the metal. The only use of it [money] which is interdicted is to…

A laborer. [Obs.] Chaucer.

One who performs a task, as a day-laborer. [R.]

e manual arts, to facilitate mechanical operations; any instrument used by a craftsman or laborer at his work; an implement; as, the tools of a joiner, smith, shoe-maker, etc.; also, a cutter, chisel, or other part of an instrument or machine that dresses work.

One who cultivates, prunes, or cares for, grapevines; a laborer in a vineyard. The sons of the shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. Isa. lxi. 5.

in any country at any time depended upon the relation of the wages fund to the number of laborers. This theory has been greatly modified by the discovery of other conditions affecting wages, which it does not take into account. Encyc. Brit.

To carry on business; to be engaged or employed customarily; to perform the part of a laborer; to labor; to toil. They that work in fine flax . . . shall be confounded. Isa. xix. 9.

One who, or that which, works; a laborer; a performer; as, a worker in brass. Professors of holiness, but workers of iniquity. Shak.

he class of people who are engaged in manual labor, or are dependent upon it for support; laborers; operatives; -- chiefly used in the plural. -- Working day. See under Day, n. -- Working drawing, a drawing, as of the whole or part of a structure, machine, etc., made to a scale, and intended to be followed by the wor…

Hence, especially, a skillful artificer or laborer.