laborious
adj/ləˈbɔːɹiəs/
Etymology From Old French laborios, from Latin laboriosus. By surface analysis, labor + -ious
1
Requiring much physical effort; toilsome.
- Let us face it, our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter I, in Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC, page 7:
- The coal is then transferred to broad-gauge wagons for transport to Dublin. The transhipment is a rather laborious business, the coal being shovelled by hand from one wagon to another.1951 May, R. K. Kirkland, “The Cavan & Leitrim Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 343:
2
Mentally difficult; painstaking.
3
Industrious.
- All, with united Force, combine to drive / The lazy Drones from the laborious Hive.1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 129, lines 241–242:
- Synonyms
- painstaking, toilsome, worksome, painful
- Derived terms
- laboriosity, laboriously, laboriousness, nonlaborious, ultralaborious, unlaborious
- Related terms
- labor, labour