Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality or state of being irksome; vexatiousness; tediousness; wearisomeness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state of being irksome; vexatiousness; tediousness; wearisomeness.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Then we will begin to know each other, and we will no longer be tormented by the irksomeness of writing.

    The Kempton-Wace Letters 2010

  • But it was worth a moment of irksomeness to taste the pure night air again.

    Behemoth Mr. Scott Westerfeld 2010

  • These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way–to depend on no one–to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another.

    Archive 2009-08-01 2009

  • These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way–to depend on no one–to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another.

    Brave New World 2009

  • The irksomeness of this restraint induced him to keep as much as possible out of her way; though respect and pity for her birth and her misfortunes, led him to resolve never to part with her till Indiana was married.

    Camilla 2008

  • We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of further inertia and the irksomeness of action.

    Since Change is THE Issue, What is Change? 2008

  • Let the Muses sing, (as he said;) the Graces dance, not at their weddings only but all their days long; so couple their hearts, that no irksomeness or anger ever befall them: let him never call her other name than my joy, my light, or she call him otherwise than sweetheart.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • For before the irksomeness of the school-bench was well behind him, he had begun his training as a teacher, and as soon as he had learnt how to instil his own half-digested knowledge into the minds of others, he received a small post in the school at which his father taught.

    Maurice Guest 2003

  • In this matter of Hester Prynne there was neither irritation nor irksomeness.

    The Scarlet Letter 2002

  • The irksomeness of work, which the classical economists thought to be inherent in the nature of man himself, Veblen saw as the degradation of a once honored way of life under the impact of a predatory spirit; a community that admires and elevates force and brute prowess cannot beatify human toil.

    The Worldly Philosophers Robert L. Heilbroner 1999

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