ARDUOUS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Arduous

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/ˈɑrdʒuəs/ Listen

adjective

Arduous adj.

Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb. "Those arduous paths they trod."

Attended with great labor, like the ascending of acclivities; difficult; laborious; as, an arduous employment, task, or enterprise.

Synonyms: Difficult; trying; laborious; painful; exhausting. 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."

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Etymology of 'Arduous'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Arduous" Quotes from Famous Books

... and arduous march, for the slave chain was new to these people, and there were many delays as one of their number would stumble and fall, dragging others down with her. Then, too, Tarzan had been forced to make a wide detour to avoid any possibility of meeting with returning raiders. ...

— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the event of March 13, 1881, did affect him powerfully enough to produce the most beautiful of all requiem masses: one worthy of the martyrdom it commemorated. For the Liberator met the base reward of his long and arduous struggle to help his people as nobly as had his great American predecessor, who, sixteen years before, had also fallen by a traitor's hand. Yet it is said that none who had known him doubted, as they ...

— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... she had always received each fresh intelligence of his progress with the transports of pleasure of a child, but without appreciating the labors of each of these so arduous steps that lead to honors, and always asking him with naivete when he would be Constable, and when they should marry, as if she were asking him when he would come to the Caroussel, or whether the weather was fine. Hitherto, he had smiled at these questions and this ignorance, pardonable at ...

— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... nature upon their heads, and performing muscular feats which heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, ...

— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... volunteers. In a few moments Yuba Bill was engaged like Caliban in bearing logs for this Miranda; the expressman was grinding coffee on the veranda; to myself the arduous duty of slicing bacon was assigned; and the Judge lent each man his good-humored and voluble counsel. And when Miggles, assisted by the Judge and our Hibernian "deck passenger," set the table with ...

— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

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