How to filter for "labels does not contain X" in JIRA/JQL?

Question

How can I write a JQL query which finds all issues whose list of labels does not include a particular value?

I've tried labels != "thing-i-dont-want", but this did not work (it found no issues, strangely) and labels not in "thing-i-dont-want", with the same results.

Answer 1

There is a post on here which suggests using the following:

status in("open","reopened","inprogress") and (labels not in("OnHold") or labels is EMPTY)