tedium

UK/ˈtiː.di.əm/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,402 of 15,258neutral

Tedium is the state of being dull beyond bearing. The tedium of the wait.

It is not the same as difficulty, since the hardest thing about it is that nothing is happening. Tedium is what most work in an emergency service actually consists of.

Definitions of tedium

1nountediumThe state of being dull beyond bearing.C1
“The tedium of the second week was worse than the danger of the first.”

tedium is a state.

Where it comes from

Latin taedium comes from taedere, to weary.

Latin
taedium
English, today
tedium

Built from

taedēre · Latin — to weary

From Latin taedium, from taedēre (“to weary”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

tedium in the wild

Trips to Rio alleviated his tedium which he surpassed by discovering two loves of his life: politics and Dona Gercina Borges, whom he married.
Pedro Ludovico
The review wonders why the book was published at all, referring to it as "whining" and saying it "continues for 143 pages of almost sadistic tedium".
Mars (Zorn book)
At this intermediate length, the action moved swiftly while still allowing for plot complications, but avoided the occasional padded-out-by-dialogue tedium of the later books.
The Interlopers (novel)
The whole stirs sluggishly from the passage with heavy tedium.
Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Mendelssohn)
Boredom, tedium, ennui, is an emotional or psychological state of mind.
Boredom (disambiguation)

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.

Related words

the taedium family

fastidious tedium

tedium — used about once every 13,270 pages · #12,402 · point at the bar for the others

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