onerous

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English

Etymology

From Middle English onerous, from Middle French onereux, from Old French onereus, from Latin onerosus (burdensome), from onus (load).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈɒnəɹəs/, /ˈəʊnəɹəs/
  • (file)
  • (file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈɑnəɹəs/, /ˈoʊnəɹəs/

Adjective

onerous (comparative more onerous, superlative most onerous)

  1. imposing or constituting a physical, mental, or figurative load which can be borne only with effort; burdensome.
    • 1820, Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:
      That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable.
    • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 13, in Shirley. A Tale. , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., , →OCLC:
      Again, and more intensely than ever, she desired a fixed occupation,—no matter how onerous, how irksome.
    • 1910, Jack London, “The Golden Poppy”, in Revolution and Other Essays:
      [I]t has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful task.
    • 1945 January and February, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—III”, in Railway Magazine, page 13:
      The striker's job was onerous, too, because there was so little "give" in the metal, and the perpetual jarring was indeed trying to the muscles.
    • 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 11:
      However, given current sensibilities about individual privacy and data protection, the recording of oral data is becoming increasingly onerous for researchers[.]

Synonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle French onereux, from Old French onereus, from Latin onerosus.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɔnɛˈruːs/, /ɔˈnɛrus/

Adjective

onerous

  1. (Late Middle English) onerous

Descendants

  • English: onerous

References