Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Demanding great effort or labor; difficult.
  • adjective Testing severely the powers of endurance; strenuous.
  • adjective Hard to traverse, climb, or surmount.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Steep, and therefore difficult of ascent; hard to climb.
  • Attended with great labor, like the ascent of acclivities; difficult.
  • Hence—3. Energetic; laborious: said of persons or actions: as, an arduous student;

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb.
  • adjective Attended with great labor, like the ascending of acclivities; difficult; laborious.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Needing or using up much energy; testing powers of endurance.
  • adjective obsolete burning; ardent
  • adjective this sense) Difficult or exhausting to traverse.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort
  • adjective difficult to accomplish; demanding considerable mental effort and skill
  • adjective taxing to the utmost; testing powers of endurance

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin arduus, high, steep.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin arduus ("lofty, high, steep, hard to reach, difficult, laborious"), akin to Irish ard ("high").

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Examples

  • U.S. power officials now say this outage is contained and what they call the arduous process of restoring systems is underway and we have gotten some confirmation of that from our reporters in New York City.

    CNN Transcript Aug 14, 2003 2003

  • Hassan said his resignation was not caused by any divisions in his economic team but insisted "the reasons behind not wanting to renew his contract is his age and the length of time he has spent in this post which he described as arduous," according to the statement.

    Reuters: Top News 2011

  • Hassan said his resignation was not caused by any divisions in his economic team but insisted "the reasons behind not wanting to renew his contract is his age and the length of time he has spent in this post which he described as arduous," according to the statement.

    Reuters: Top News 2011

  • Backers of the confirmation measure say they want to ease what they call an arduous chore for midlevel nominees trying to navigate the Senate in a supercharged partisan era.

    NYT > Global Home By CARL HULSE 2011

  • Her mother, and even Lexi, gave him wide berth, and the long trip was conducted in arduous silence.

    fiction: into the morning Dean Francis Alfar 2004

  • Her mother, and even Lexi, gave him wide berth, and the long trip was conducted in arduous silence.

    Archive 2004-08-01 Dean Francis Alfar 2004

  • As this is also the moment when the state begins to shovel out generous pensions, more than 600 Greek professions somehow managed to get themselves classified as arduous: hairdressers, radio announcers, waiters, musicians and on and on and on.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Michael Lewis 2011

  • As this is also the moment when the state begins to shovel out generous pensions, more than 600 Greek professions somehow managed to get themselves classified as arduous: hairdressers, radio announcers, waiters, musicians and on and on and on.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Michael Lewis 2011

  • As this is also the moment when the state begins to shovel out generous pensions, more than 600 Greek professions somehow managed to get themselves classified as arduous: hairdressers, radio announcers, waiters, musicians and on and on and on.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Michael Lewis 2011

  • As this is also the moment when the state begins to shovel out generous pensions, more than 600 Greek professions somehow managed to get themselves classified as arduous: hairdressers, radio announcers, waiters, musicians, and on and on and on.

    chump seti 2010

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