laborious

[luh-bawr-ee-uhs]

adjective

1. requiring much work, exertion, or perseverance.

   a laborious undertaking.

   Synonyms: wearisome, tiresome, hard, difficult, burdensome, onerous, arduous, toilsome

2. characterized by or requiring extreme care and much attention to detail.

   laborious research.

3. characterized by or exhibiting excessive effort, dullness, and lack of spontaneity; labored: labor.

   a strained, laborious plot.

4. given to or diligent in work.

   a careful, laborious craftsman.

   Synonyms: painstaking, sedulous, assiduous, industrious, hardworking

laborious

/ ləˈbɔːrɪəs /

adjective

1. involving great exertion or long effort

2. given to working hard

3. (of literary style, etc) not fluent

Other Word Forms

• laboriously adverb
• laboriousness noun
• quasi-laborious adjective
• superlaborious adjective
• superlaboriousness noun
• unlaborious adjective
• unlaboriousness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of laborious¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English word from Latin word labōriōsus. See labor, -ious

Example Sentences

The laborious method of cartooning is what carries enough sway to move the needle.

Read more on Salon

“This is definitely more of what I was envisioning,” Muncy said this weekend, reflecting back on the early-season struggles and laborious swing work over the winter that preceded his two-month tear.

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Several former federal prosecutors said the firing of an assistant U.S. attorney would normally be a laborious process that involves the employee’s supervisor and higher-ups at their district office.

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Some of Trump’s most prominent current and former attorneys doubt that the president has a path to a third term, absent a laborious, politically challenging and time-consuming constitutional amendment.

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Making the traditional dough-like dish fufu, for example, is laborious and involves pounding cooked yams or cassava into a paste with a mortar.

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Related Words

• arduous 
• backbreaking 
• burdensome 
• onerous 
• strenuous 
• tiresome