laborious

American  

[luh-bawr-ee-uhs] / ləˈbɔr i əs /

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

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laborious British  

/ ləˈbɔːrɪəs /

adjective

1. involving great exertion or long effort

2. given to working hard

3. (of literary style, etc) not fluent

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Other Word Forms

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

Etymology

Origin of laborious

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

Example Sentences

For humans, it is a foul, laborious job that entails standing over a conveyor belt, plucking beer cans and detergent bottles from a stream of refuse.

From The Wall Street Journal

Part of that is because developing driverless software that performs better than humans is a laborious effort that can take years.

From MarketWatch

Governing is a long and laborious process, requiring study, deliberation and the weighing of competing forces.

From Los Angeles Times

Heaven forefend Amazon would use robots to make chores less laborious, as it has for warehouse work.

From The Wall Street Journal

Unlike classical antennas, which require laborious calibration in specialized radio laboratories, the atomic-based system is, in a sense, a standard unto itself.

From Science Daily

Related Words

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