Crossword clues for strenuous
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Strenuous \Stren"u*ous\, a. [L. strenuus; cf. Gr. ? strong, hard, rough, harsh.] Eagerly pressing or urgent; zealous; ardent; earnest; bold; valiant; intrepid; as, a strenuous advocate for national rights; a strenuous reformer; a strenuous defender of his country.
And spirit-stirring wine, that strenuous makes.
--Chapman.
Strenuous, continuous labor is pain.
--I. Taylor.
[1913 Webster] -- Stren"u*ous*ly, adv. --
Stren"u*ous*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"characterized by great effort," mid-15c. (implied in strenuously), from Latin strenuus "active, brisk, quick, nimble, prompt, vigorous, keen." Probably cognate with Greek strenes, strenos "keen, strong," strenos "arrogance, eager desire," Old English stierne "hard, severe, keen" (see stern (adj.)). Mocked by Ben Jonson as a pedantic neologism in "Poetaster" (1601). Sense of "requiring much energy" is first recorded 1670s. Related: Strenuousness; strenuosity.
Wiktionary
a. 1 urgent, ardent, zealous. 2 Requiring great exertion.
WordNet
Usage examples of "strenuous".
This school, founded by Wooster Beach, instituted the most strenuous opposition to the employment of mercury, antimony, the blister, and the lancet.
Or blent with happier choice of time and place, To hold the imagination of this strenuous race.
I would not budge, he scrambled through the briery hedge and took me, whether I would or no, into his strenuous embrace.
I was after all no longer a girl, and the day would come when I might be glad not to have to be subjected to strenuous activities such as those which had taken place in Britten Street.
These three persons, thus accused, were brought to the bar of the house, notwithstanding the strenuous remonstrances of several members, who opposed this method of proceeding, as a species of oppression equally arbitrary and absurd.
Football is perhaps one of the most strenuous of outdoor games, and is to be especially advised where one has the vitality and endurance which fits him for an exercise of this character.
The rabid determination of partizan politicians not to allow the United States to enter into any agreement with the rest of the world to stop war, the outbreaks of violence among the criminal classes, the determined efforts of the liquor interests to nullify the constitutional Prohibition amendment, the depression in business, the increase of unemployment, the strenuous effort of the agitators to make trouble between this country and Great Britain on one side and Japan on the other, all may be grouped with this pathetic spectacle of respectable women turned shoplifters as an indication of that other moral slump from idealism.
The musicians ceased playing, and in the place of the noisy, effervescent revelry of the previous half hour, a subdued murmur filled all the barn, a mingling of whispers, lowered voices, the coming and going of light footsteps, the uneasy shifting of positions, while from behind the closed doors of the harness room came a prolonged, sullen hum of anger and strenuous debate.
How many tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades and strenuous bravuras!
Abandoning seership for rulership, he gradually, despite his most strenuous efforts to retain it, lost the mystical vision which had given him his spiritual authority -- but not, unfortunately, before he had covered with that authority many acts and policies of the most questionable nature.
The climbs were not only strenuous, they were dangerous too: on our fifth climb a boy named Steill, from the House of Leather-makers, became lost in the woods and we searched for him half the night before we found him at last, lying broken in the moonlight at the bottom of a deep ravine with his brains spilling out of his head.
Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax were engaged in one of their regular wars with the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug, and were not enjoying it as much as usual because it involved an awful lot of trekking through the Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda, and across the Fire Mountains of Frazfraga, neither of which terrains they felt at home in.
Strenuous Garfighters of Stug, and the Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak, they went on to find an entirely new way of blowing themselves up, which was a profound relief to everyone else in the Galaxy, particularly the Garfighters, the Stilettans and the potatoes.
Things made by mankind under modern conditions are ugly, primarily because our social organisation is ugly, because we live in an atmosphere of snatch and uncertainty, and do everything in an underbred strenuous manner.
Most of the others were below in the shade or asleep in their cabins content to rest after the strenuous morning.