operose
Americanadjective
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industrious, as a person.
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done with or involving much labor.
adjective
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laborious
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industrious; busy
Other Word 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 Scots 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 The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
He might have considered that the facility and vivacity of his pleasing compositions were preferable to that art, that habitual pomp, and that ostentatious eloquence, which prevail in the operose labours of Johnson.
From Literary Character of Men of Genius Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions by Isaac Disraeli
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