hard labor

American  

noun

1. compulsory labor imposed upon criminals in addition to imprisonment, generally not exceeding ordinary labor in severity or amount.

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Etymology

Origin of hard labor

First recorded in 1850–55

Example Sentences

It takes sustained hard labor.

From The Wall Street Journal

Daddy wanted his sons’ existence to be easier than his own life of hard labor.

From Literature

After the war, Faÿ was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor, but he escaped from prison in 1951 dressed in ecclesiastical costume, with the help of—here one reaches for the phrase “incredible but true”—Toklas.

From The Wall Street Journal

But he was “cut to the bone with hard labor,” wrote Carl Van Doren, one of his biographers, and his “Autobiography” promoted the belief that any American, through diligent labor and discipline, could prosper and advance and keep reinventing himself.

From The Wall Street Journal

A boy who looked like he was my age told me his uncle took a piece of fruit that did not belong to him and was sentenced to five years of hard labor in Aswan.

From Literature