arduous
Americanadjective
-
requiring great exertion; laborious; difficult.
an arduous undertaking.
- Synonyms:
- exhausting, burdensome, wearisome, onerous, toilsome, hard
- Antonyms:
- easy
-
requiring or using much energy and vigor; strenuous.
making an arduous effort.
-
hard to climb; steep.
an arduous path up the hill.
-
hard to endure; full of hardships; severe.
an arduous winter.
adjective
-
requiring great physical or mental effort; difficult to accomplish; strenuous
-
hard to endure; harsh
arduous conditions
-
hard to overcome or surmount; steep or difficult
an arduous track
Other Word Forms
- arduously adverb
- arduousness noun
- superarduous adjective
- superarduously adverb
- superarduousness noun
- unarduous adjective
- unarduously adverb
- unarduousness noun
Etymology
Origin of arduous
First recorded in 1530–40; from Latin arduus “erect, laborious, steep”
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.
After an arduous, nearly two month long journey hiking through Thailand, Geumseong eventually made it to Seoul.
From BBC
That said, the S&P 500 is only down around 0.45% from last Friday’s close, despite what Fundstrat’s Tom Lee described as a “painful and arduous week” for investors.
From Barron's
“Ghost Elephants” is a Werner Herzog film so, unsurprisingly, the titular characters play second fiddle to a man on an arduous quest, with fascinating digressions along the way.
From Los Angeles Times
It was the summer of 2016, and my family and I were travelling back to the States from Bangladesh — an arduous 23-hour-long journey that was further extended by a 12+ hour layover in Istanbul.
From Salon
The walking was at once more difficult here, the going more arduous, the snow deeper, but at least we weren’t dragging along with hundreds of others, being endlessly held up.
From Literature
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.
