# a labor of love

idiom · CEFR B2

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/a-labor-of-love
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

Work done for the joy of it or out of devotion, rather than for money or reward.

## Examples

- Restoring the old boat was a labor of love.
- The community garden was a labor of love, tended for years by volunteers who never asked for anything in return.
- The dictionary had taken him the better part of two decades and earned him almost nothing, but it had been a labor of love from the first entry to the last, and he would not have traded a single one of those quiet, unpaid years.

## Origin

The phrase comes from Paul, who praises the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 for their work of faith and labour of love — service undertaken out of genuine devotion rather than obligation or hope of payment. The whole point of the phrase is the pairing of two things usually felt as opposites: labour, meaning hard and often thankless effort, joined to love, the motive that makes the effort willingly borne. In English a labour of love is any demanding, time-consuming task carried out for its own sake or for the sake of someone or something cared about — the restored house, the years-long book, the family recipe — where the reward is the doing, not the pay.

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