arduous
Americanadjective
-
requiring great exertion; laborious; difficult.
an arduous undertaking.
- Synonyms:
- exhausting, burdensome, wearisome, onerous, toilsome, hard
- Antonyms:
- easy
-
requiring or using much energy and vigor; strenuous.
making an arduous effort.
-
hard to climb; steep.
an arduous path up the hill.
-
hard to endure; full of hardships; severe.
an arduous winter.
adjective
-
requiring great physical or mental effort; difficult to accomplish; strenuous
-
hard to endure; harsh
arduous conditions
-
hard to overcome or surmount; steep or difficult
an arduous track
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of arduous
First recorded in 1530–40; from Latin arduus “erect, laborious, steep”
Explanation
Use the adjective arduous to describe an activity that takes a lot of effort. Writing all those college essays and filling out the applications is an arduous process! Arduous was first used in English to mean "steep" or "difficult to climb." If you're an outdoorsman, hiking up a mountain is a lot of fun, but if you're a couch potato, it's an arduous trek. Today, the word can be used figuratively for something that is difficult or takes a lot of work. If you spend an arduous week studying for your final exams, you'll do well because you've worked really hard!
Vocabulary lists containing arduous
100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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30 GRE Words Beginning with "A"
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Grade 10, List 2
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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.
Arduous journeys are often compounded by long queues at the bridge.
From Reuters • Aug. 29, 2023
Leader Kim Jong-un has compared the current situation to the country's worst disaster in the 1990's, known as the "Arduous March", where hundreds of thousands of people died in a famine.
From BBC • Nov. 4, 2021
He grew up during a famine in the 1990s known as the Arduous March, a period of mass starvation which left anywhere between one and three million North Koreans dead.
From BBC • Jul. 5, 2020
Physics An Arduous Business Trip Not everyone has a 50-foot-wide electromagnet to spare.
From New York Times • May 20, 2013
My love; we have not yet attain’d the close Of all our sufferings, but unmeasured toil Arduous remains, which I must still atchieve.
From The Odyssey of Homer by Cowper, William
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.
