What was Arendt's definition of work labor and action?

In Hannah Arendt's book The Human Condition, she is interested in the contrast between what she calls the active life and the contemplative life, and she worries that the debate over the status of each has blinded us to insights about the active life and the way it has changed throughout human history.  She discusses three different categories of active life: work, labor, and action.

Work, Arendt claims, has a clear beginning and end...

In Hannah Arendt's book The Human Condition, she is interested in the contrast between what she calls the active life and the contemplative life, and she worries that the debate over the status of each has blinded us to insights about the active life and the way it has changed throughout human history.  She discusses three different categories of active life: work, labor, and action.

Work, Arendt claims, has a clear beginning and end (from the idea for the object and the obtaining of raw material to the finished product) and leaves behind a durable object (e.g., a building or a machine) as opposed to something consumable (e.g., food).  Work involves some sort of interruption to nature to obtain raw materials, such as cutting down a tree for lumber.  She views this interruption as a form of violence, or at the very least, a violation of the natural order.

Labor is seen as action taken in order to survive (e.g., meeting biological needs such as eating) both as an individual and for the survival of the human race as a species.  Unlike work, labor does not have an ending because we must continually meet our biological and reproductive needs in order to survive. The fruits of labor must be consumed, forcing us to create more.

Action is the means by which human beings reveal themselves to one another through speech and physical actions.  This includes both deliberate and unintentional revelations or disclosures, and Arendt argues that what a person reveals in action is more than likely unknown to the person acting (i.e., others know us better than we know ourselves), and that revelation is made known only to the actor when they hear the story of their actions.  Action is the way human beings distinguish themselves from one another and identify who we are as individuals.  Actions in Arendt's view, be it speech or physical action, are always between and directed toward humans, and they are responsible for human relationships.