laborious

«laborious» in Mova's school dictionary: Needing a lot of hard work, effort and time — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

adjective (laborious, more laborious, most laborious)

meaning for a pupil

1) Needing a lot of hard work, effort and time. tree →

2) (of writing or speech) Slow and heavy, showing too much effort. tree →

sense in the lessons

Used in history (building pyramids or castles was laborious), science and maths (counting one by one is laborious, so we use multiplication). In stories it tells the reader a task is long and tiring.

examples

• Copying the whole book by hand was laborious work. tree →
• Digging the tunnel was slow and laborious. tree →
• Adding 7 forty times is laborious, so use 7 × 40 instead. tree →
• The Mole's laborious spring-cleaning made his arms ache. tree →
• Before washing machines, washing clothes was laborious. tree →
• His laborious handwriting took ages. tree →

note

Comes from «labour». Spelled without u even in the UK: laborious, not labourious. Adverb: laboriously.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «laborious» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.