laboriously
Americanadverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of laboriously
Explanation
When it takes a huge, slow effort to do something, you do it laboriously. For some students, math is a breeze — others have to study laboriously for every quiz. Whether you're exerting yourself physically or mentally, if it takes a lot of effort and time, you're working laboriously. Landscapers laboriously hefting heavy stones will groan and sweat, while chess players laboriously planning several moves ahead might just furrow their brows with the effort. This adverb comes from labor and its Latin root meaning "toil, exertion, or hardship."
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.
While traveling in Algeria in 2019, I took notes while watching women laboriously preparing couscous.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 2, 2026
The garden's collection has been laboriously reassembled after it had perished during World War II -- through decades of purchases, exchanges and numerous scientific missions that took Ivannikov's senior colleagues across several continents.
From Barron's • Feb. 12, 2026
She worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a “human computer,” laboriously measuring the positions and brightness of thousands of stars on photographic plates.
From Salon • Feb. 14, 2025
For one, following the 2021 reopening of comedy venues, the entire industry clicked into the same two-year-ish cycle typical of laboriously honing material, filming, editing, releasing and promoting.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 27, 2023
Now she had to do it laboriously, and her grip was failing, and she mustn’t fail because otherwise everything would fail...
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
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.
