rigorous

UK/ˈɹɪɡəɹəs/US/ˈɹɪɡəɹəs/

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,958 of 15,258leans written

Rigorous means careful and exact, leaving no loose ends. Rigorous testing, a rigorous method, rigorously applied.

It is high praise in research and engineering, where rigour means following the method without shortcuts and being able to show it. Rigorous testing is what a claim needs before it counts. Applied to a regime or a standard it means strict and demanding. Note rigour, spelt rigor in America; and that the Latin means stiffness, which is where rigor mortis comes from.

Definitions of rigorous

1adjectiverigorousCareful and exact, leaving no loose ends.B2+
“All new medicines go through rigorous testing before they are sold.”
synonyms: thorough, exacting

rigorous is a quality of thoroughness.

Where it comes from

Latin rigorosus comes from rigor, stiffness, from rigere, to be stiff. Rigor mortis and rigid come from the same stiffness.

Proto-Indo-European
*Hreyǵ-
Latin
rigōrōsus
Anglo-Norman
rigoreus
Middle English
rigorous
English, today
rigorous

Middle English rigorous, from Middle French - and Anglo-Norman rigoreus, derived from Latin rigōrōsus stiff, rigid; inflexible. by surface analysis, rigor + -ous.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Academic English

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rigorous in the wild

In these treatises, he proves the same theorems by exhaustion, finding rigorous upper and lower bounds which both converge to the answer required.
The Method of Mechanical Theorems
Nevertheless, the mechanical method was what he used to discover the relations for which he later gave rigorous proofs.
The Method of Mechanical Theorems
A more rigorous hike ascends to the east ridge of Raft Mountain from where a skyline walk can go in either direction to Raft's multiple summits.
Caligata Lake Provincial Park
Several agitators were arrested and sentenced to prison terms ranging from a few weeks to a year of rigorous imprisonment.
Neil Statue Satyagraha
Dork is independently owned and operated, and has a rigorous sourcing and verification policy to ensure all information is accurate and complete.
Dork (magazine)

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.

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