operose
Americanadjective
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industrious, as a person.
-
done with or involving much labor.
adjective
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laborious
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industrious; busy
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of operose
First recorded in 1530–50; from Latin operōsus “busy, active,” equivalent to oper- (stem of opus ) “work” + -ōsus -ose 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Stephens called it “dry operose quackery ... mere chaff not studied from nature, and therefore worthless, never felt, and therefore useless”.
From Nature • Oct. 23, 2018
The girls marched past progressively tougher words, from heroine, blossom and dentifrice to operose, miscible and quadrumanous.
From Time Magazine Archive
He reposes on lion skins, suggestive of swift strength, leisurely superior to operose muscularity.
From Time Magazine Archive
The common Scotch saying, on the sight of anything operose and finical, "he must have had little to do that made that!" might be put as epigraph on all the song books of old France.
From Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Stevenson, Robert Louis
Misserrimam ergo necesse est, non tantum brevissimam, vitam eorum esse, qui magno parant labore, quod majore possideant: operose assequuntur quæ volunt, anxii tenent quæ assecuti sunt.
From Dealings with the Dead, Volume I (of 2) by School, A Sexton of the Old
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
