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arduous

UK/ˈɑː.djʊ.əs/US/ˈɑɹ.d͡ʒu.əs/
adjectiveC2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,648 of 15,258neutral

Arduous means needing hard and tiring effort. An arduous journey, an arduous task, arduous training.

It is about sustained effort rather than difficulty of skill: an arduous climb is long and punishing rather than technically hard. The Latin behind it means steep and high, and the sense of a slog up a slope is still in the word.

Definitions of arduous

  1. 1adjectivearduousNeeding hard and tiring effort.C2

    “After an arduous journey across the desert, the travellers finally reached the oasis.”

arduous is a quality.

Remember it

The Latin behind it means steep, like ground that goes straight up. An arduous job is one you climb rather than walk.

hooks ontoclimb

Where it comes from

Latin arduus means steep or lofty, and is related to the Irish word for high.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₃erdʰ-

  2. Latin

    arduus

  3. English, today

    arduous

Built from

  • ard · Irish — high

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

arduous in the wild

  • A slightly less arduous (but longer) climb approaches the mountain from its eastern end at Sconser.

    Glamaig

  • The trail is important to New Mexico history because it established an arduous but usable trade route with California.

    Old Spanish Trail (trade route)

  • The aim was to provide entertainment and encouragement aboard the ship during its long and arduous voyage to Fremantle.

    The Wild Goose

  • There are three tests known as arduous, moderate, and light.

    Work Capacity Test

  • The Committee intended to extend recognition only to those whose war service in Australia was more arduous than the norm, and was performed under military-like conditions.

    Civilian Service Medal 1939–1945

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.