Arduous \Ar"du*ous\ (?; 135), a. [L. arduus steep, high; akin to
Ir. ard high, height.]
1. Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb.
[1913 Webster]
Those arduous paths they trod. --Pope.
[1913 Webster]
2. Attended with great labor, like the ascending of
acclivities; difficult; laborious; as, an arduous
employment, task, or enterprise.
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Syn: Difficult; trying; laborious; painful; exhausting.
Usage: Arduous, Hard, Difficult. Hard is simpler,
blunter, and more general in sense than difficult; as,
a hard duty to perform, hard work, a hard task, one
which requires much bodily effort and perseverance to
do. Difficult commonly implies more skill and sagacity
than hard, as when there is disproportion between the
means and the end. A work may be hard but not
difficult. We call a thing arduous when it requires
strenuous and persevering exertion, like that of one
who is climbing a precipice; as, an arduous task, an
arduous duty. "It is often difficult to control our
feelings; it is still harder to subdue our will; but
it is an arduous undertaking to control the unruly and
contending will of others."
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
arduous
adj 1: characterized by toilsome effort to the point of exhaustion;
especially physical effort; "worked their arduous way
up the mining valley"; "a grueling campaign"; "hard
labor"; "heavy work"; "heavy going"; "spent many
laborious hours on the project"; "set a punishing
pace" [syn: backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, hard,
heavy, laborious, punishing, toilsome]
2: taxing to the utmost; testing powers of endurance; "his
final, straining burst of speed"; "a strenuous task";
"your willingness after these six arduous days to remain
here"- F.D.Roosevelt [syn: straining, strenuous]
3: difficult to accomplish; demanding considerable mental
effort and skill; "the arduous work of preparing a
dictionary"
WordNet (r) 2.0
68 Moby Thesaurus words for "arduous":
Herculean, abrupt, abstruse, backbreaking, brutal, burdensome,
complex, critical, crushing, delicate, demanding, difficile,
difficult, effortful, energetic, exacting, exhausting, fatiguing,
forced, formidable, grueling, hairy, hard, heavy, hefty, intricate,
jawbreaking, killing, knotted, knotty, labored, laborious, mean,
no picnic, not easy, onerous, operose, oppressive, painful,
precipitate, precipitous, punishing, rigorous, rough, rugged,
set with thorns, severe, sheer, sideling, spiny, steep, stickle,
strained, strenuous, taxing, thorny, ticklish, tiring, toilsome,
tough, tricksy, tricky, troublesome, trying, uphill, vigorous,
wearisome, wicked
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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