Crossword clues for arduous
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Arduous \Ar"du*ous\ (?; 135), a. [L. arduus steep, high; akin to Ir. ard high, height.]
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Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb.
Those arduous paths they trod.
--Pope. -
Attended with great labor, like the ascending of acclivities; difficult; laborious; as, an arduous employment, task, or enterprise.
Syn: Difficult; trying; laborious; painful; exhausting.
Usage: Arduous, Hard, Difficult. Hard is simpler, blunter, and more general in sense than difficult; as, a hard duty to perform, hard work, a hard task, one which requires much bodily effort and perseverance to do. Difficult commonly implies more skill and sagacity than hard, as when there is disproportion between the means and the end. A work may be hard but not difficult. We call a thing arduous when it requires strenuous and persevering exertion, like that of one who is climbing a precipice; as, an arduous task, an arduous duty. ``It is often difficult to control our feelings; it is still harder to subdue our will; but it is an arduous undertaking to control the unruly and contending will of others.''
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1530s, "hard to accomplish, difficult to do," from Latin arduus "high, steep," also figuratively, "difficult," from PIE root *eredh- "to grow, high" (see ortho-). Literal sense of "high, steep, difficult to climb," attested in English from 1709.
Wiktionary
a. Needing or using up much energy; testing powers of endurance.
WordNet
adj. characterized by toilsome effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort; "worked their arduous way up the mining valley"; "a grueling campaign"; "hard labor"; "heavy work"; "heavy going"; "spent many laborious hours on the project"; "set a punishing pace" [syn: backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, hard, heavy, laborious, punishing, toilsome]
taxing to the utmost; testing powers of endurance; "his final, straining burst of speed"; "a strenuous task"; "your willingness after these six arduous days to remain here"- F.D.Roosevelt [syn: straining, strenuous]
difficult to accomplish; demanding considerable mental effort and skill; "the arduous work of preparing a dictionary"
Usage examples of "arduous".
In the dingy little dining-room of the Albergo Monte Gazza, a mountain inn miles from anywhere, situation arduous for walkers and pointless for cars, tariff humanely adjusted to the purses of the penniless, his poise and finish made him a grotesque.
Hall had let him into Troubadours at all, that the audition process had been really arduous.
It had been a pretty arduous day, too, and two members of the escadrille had new honors coming to them, since they had dropped enemy planes in full view of tens of thousands of cheering spectators, after thrilling combats high in the air.
The acquisition of such literacy was arduous and was aided by encyclopaedic and other lists.
The distance that had required two days and nights of arduous efforts in coming from Morbus was spanned in a few hours by the swift malagor.
Instead of rewarding him for his arduous journey, the Naib had sent his abashed young grandson off to his quarters alone.
Zembac Pix assisted him in the wording of it, which was to the effect that the Free Company of Cannoneers had now commenced the arduous duty of defending Land Nor against alien and hostile forces intent upon establishing a governance over the Land aforesaid.
It is within easy access at all seasons of the year of the French colony of Tonquin, whereas the trade route from here to British Burma is long, arduous, and mountainous, and in its Western portions is closed to traffic during the rains.
There were the same long solitary months, the same monotonous loneliness by the evening firelight, the same trudging through the snow on companionless expeditions, the same arduous gathering of faggots and the same fear of predatory wild things, the same howling of wolves from across the valley and the same clamoring of storm-winds, the same bleak questionings and the same impotent wrath at the unkindliness of my fate.
But if we attentively reflect how much swifter is the progress of corruption than its cure, and if we remember that the years abandoned to public disorders exceeded the months allotted to the martial reign of Aurelian, we must confess that a few short intervals of peace were insufficient for the arduous work of reformation.
The dancing line went home, represented herself when she got there as Jenny Brunies, fell slightly ill, soon recovered, and embarked on the arduous career of a successful ballet dancer.
They paid us a visit only days after a pregnant woman had arrived in Nonsuch Books following what she said was an arduous journey by barge from Oxford.
The grateful manifestations which we have received from this class of sufferers have afforded us one of the greatest pleasures of our lives, and have alone been a rich remuneration for the diligent study and arduous labors devoted to the investigation of these diseases and to the perfecting of our peculiar and successful methods of treating them.
In the arduous task which Claudius had undertaken, of restoring the empire to its ancient splendor, it was first necessary to revive among his troops a sense of order and obedience.
Jackson linen mill, and Jamie watched in amazement the arduous labor, as the flax was hackled and scutched, and the peasant women toiled over great steaming kettles boiling the spun thread to purify it.