means A room or building equipped for scientific experiments, research, testing, or the manufacture of chemicals and drugs.

from From Medieval Latin laboratorium, "a place for working," built on Latin laborare, "to labor, to toil" — the same root that gives us labor itself. The word arrived in English around the early 17th century, when it still smelled of the alchemist's furnace; only later did it cool into the tidy, glassware-lined rooms we picture now. At heart it simply names the place where work — sweaty, patient, hands-on work — gets done.