Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Demanding great effort or labor; difficult: "the arduous work of preparing a Dictionary of the English Language” ( Thomas Macaulay).
- adj. Testing severely the powers of endurance; strenuous: a long, arduous, and exhausting war.
- adj. Hard to traverse, climb, or surmount. See Synonyms at burdensome, hard.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Steep, and therefore difficult of ascent; hard to climb.
- Attended with great labor, like the ascent of acclivities; difficult.
- Hence—3. Energetic; laborious: said of persons or actions: as, an arduous student; arduous struggles. Synonyms Difficult, Hard, Arduous, laborious, toilsome, herculean, severe. Difficult means not easy, attended with obstacles, requiring work, but possible by faithful effort and perseverance: as, a difficult problem, question, task, or case in surgery. Hard suggests work, like that of digging up hard ground, or breaking through hard rock; it is stronger than difficult. It may also apply to passive suffering: as, a hard fate. What is arduous requires more energy and endurance, and is less within the reach of common powers, than what is hard. Its primitive meaning of steep climbing is still felt in it, and makes it suggestive of severe and protracted effort.
Wiktionary
- adj. Needing or using up much energy; testing powers of endurance.
- adj. obsolete burning; ardent
- adj. this sense) Difficult or exhausting to traverse.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb.
- adj. Attended with great labor, like the ascending of acclivities; difficult; laborious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort
- adj. difficult to accomplish; demanding considerable mental effort and skill
- adj. taxing to the utmost; testing powers of endurance
Etymologies
- From Latin arduus ("lofty, high, steep, hard to reach, difficult, laborious"), akin to Irish ard ("high"). (Wiktionary)
- From Latin arduus, high, steep. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“U.S. power officials now say this outage is contained and what they call the arduous process of restoring systems is underway and we have gotten some confirmation of that from our reporters in New York City.”
“Backers of the confirmation measure say they want to ease what they call an arduous chore for midlevel nominees trying to navigate the Senate in a supercharged partisan era.”
“Hassan said his resignation was not caused by any divisions in his economic team but insisted "the reasons behind not wanting to renew his contract is his age and the length of time he has spent in this post which he described as arduous," according to the statement.”
“Her mother, and even Lexi, gave him wide berth, and the long trip was conducted in arduous silence.”
“As this is also the moment when the state begins to shovel out generous pensions, more than 600 Greek professions somehow managed to get themselves classified as arduous: hairdressers, radio announcers, waiters, musicians and on and on and on.”
“As this is also the moment when the state begins to shovel out generous pensions, more than 600 Greek professions somehow managed to get themselves classified as arduous: hairdressers, radio announcers, waiters, musicians, and on and on and on.”
“Benedict chose a word -- "arduous" -- that applies both to the church's presence in the region, and the problems that will be considered by the synod.”
The Huffington Post: Vatican Focuses On Troubles in Middle East
“Leaders of the groups have been meeting for about three months in a planning process that some participants called arduous, debating everything from the name of the coalition to what the branding and logo should look like.”
“Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger recalls the arduous process of writing his second dissertation, a tightly written work on St Bonaventure's theology of history.”
“Depending on whether they want to make it as 14th century society where girls were wrongfully identified as witches, or she's actually a witch and the ride into the mountains become much more arduous, which is actually the better way to go about it instead of some road trip on horses.”
Another Boring Photo of Nic Cage in Season of the Witch « FirstShowing.net
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘arduous’.
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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Verbal_Advantage
paraphrase, ostensible, digress, uncanny, candor, morose, adept, saturated, pragmatic, congenial, capricious, blatant and 38 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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501
Classic
irk, teem, blight, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado and 401 more...
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501
Classic
bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august and 401 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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13
arduous, canny, climax, endorse, exuberant, intrepid, kindle, lucrative, mentor, obsession, personable, proficient and 3 more...
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times words
Times words
macabre, reprisal, despise, self-reliant, wretched, contemptuous, assail, botch, congregational, hitherto, arduous, belittle and 1 more...
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Vocab Lesson 13
arduous, canny, climax, endorse, exuberant, intrepid, kindle, lucrative, mentor, obssesion, personable, proficient and 3 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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GRE 3500
abase, abash, abate, aberrant, abeyance, abjure, ablution, abut, accede, accentuate, acerbity, acetic and 133 more...
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Magoosh GRE
its a list of words borrowed from Magoosh GRE blog ,an indispensable resource for GRE test takers.
inimitable, exiguity, myriad, cornucopia, surfeit, glut, deluge, opaque, pellucid, grandiloquent, turgid, gadfly and 106 more...
Tweets
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