Meaning & use
arduous
Last updated
Meaning
adjectivecomparable
Needing a lot of effort and stamina over a long time, so that it leaves you tired out.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after a verb: an arduous climb, the journey was arduous.
Patterns
- an arduous task
- arduous work
The arduous climb to the summit took nearly ten hours.
She went through years of arduous training before the race.
Writing the report turned out to be an arduous process.
Word forms
| comparative | more arduous |
|---|---|
| superlative | most arduous |
Common combinations
- arduous journey
- The family made an arduous journey across the mountains.
- arduous task
- Sorting the old records was an arduous task.
- arduous training
- Soldiers face arduous training before deployment.
- arduous climb
- The arduous climb rewarded them with a spectacular view.
- long and arduous
- It was a long and arduous negotiation.
Synonyms and how they differ
- gruelling
- Stresses how exhausting something is to endure, a little more informal than arduous.
- strenuous
- Focuses on the amount of physical effort needed at the moment, not on length.
- laborious
- Suggests slow, tedious work that takes great effort.
- demanding
- A milder, more general word for something that needs a lot from you.
Opposites
Word family
- arduously adverb
- in a way that takes great effort
- arduousness noun
- the quality of being very hard and tiring
Commonly confused: arduous or ardent?
arduous vs ardent
Ardent means passionate and enthusiastic, not difficult.
Practice
Which sentence uses arduous correctly?
Choose one answer.
Arduous describes something that takes sustained, tiring effort, such as a desert crossing. The other sentences use it with things that cannot be hard to do.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “arduous”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.