laborous

She felt the motion of the ship pitching, rolling, and buffeting through the ocean as she attempted to concentrate on the final stage of the laborous process happening inside of her body.

Nell Shea 2010

After the laborous application of hot water, various personal hygiene products and soft towels and the ingestion of hot soup, the bedraggled, mud-stained after-larp-zombie that was picked up by Remco earlier this afternoon is now slowly transforming back into something resembling Nathreee again.

Symbols 6 nathreee 2007

I love to keep myself busy doing laborous outdoor work like this.

A visit is like a “now and later” 2009

He took farewell of the Duke, and returned to Colvin, whom he found immersed in the business of his department, and preparing for the removal of the artillery, an operation which the clumsiness of the ordnance, and the execrable state of the roads, rendered at that time a much more troublesome operation that at present, though it is even still one of the most laborous movements attending the march of an army.

Anne of Geierstein 2008

Now, she has to either move or pressure the landlord to decontaminate the home, an expensive and laborous process, or risk serious illness in herself and her kids.

L.S.D., R.I.P. 2006

But original phrase is not that literal; it just means diligent work, laborous writing that doesn't bring any meaningful results.

languagehat.com: SCUTCH. 2005

Quitting smoking is a laborous process, and I've been trying it for a week.

jaimewolf Diary Entry jaimewolf 2004

In the reign of the caliph Haroun Alraschid, there was at Bagdad, the place of their residence, a porter, who, notwithstanding his mean and laborous business, was a fellow of wit and good-humour.

The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01 Anonymous

From this laborous method she learned another code which was the one generally in use among the imprisoned revolutionists; and she spent long hours communicating with friends in different parts of the prison who were in solitary confinement like herself, and whom she had never seen.

A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. Clayton Edwards

It is this, that great ides come to us less from outward, direct, laborous teaching, than from indirect influences, and from the native working of our own minds; so that those who want the outward apparatus for extensive learning are not cut off from them.

On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes: Lecture I 1909