onerous
/ˈɒnəɹəs/US/ˈɑnəɹəs/
onerous adjective: imposing or constituting a physical, mental, or figurative load which can be borne only with effort; burdensome.
Adjective
onerous (comparative more onerous, superlative most onerous)
- Imposing or constituting a physical, mental, or figurative load which can be borne only with effort; burdensome.
- 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.1820, Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- Again, and more intensely than ever, she desired a fixed occupation,—no matter how onerous, how irksome.1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Further Communications on Business”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 45
- Synonyms:
- burdensome, demanding, difficult, taxing, wearing
onerous meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
onerous in Hindi
- burdensome
- बोझिल bojhil
onerous in Tamil
- கடினமான, பொறுப்புச் செறிந்த, கடுவுழைப்பான, சுமையான, மிகப் பளுவான, மிகப் பொறுப்பான
onerous in Urdu
- بھاری, جابرانہ, کڑا, کٹھن, وزنی
onerous in Bengali
- ভারী ও কষ্টসাধ্য, অতিরিক্ত বোঝাস্বরূপ
More languagesFewer languages
- onerous in Malayalam
- ശ്രമാവഹമായ, ഉപദ്രവകരമായ
- onerous in Kannada
- ಹೊರೆಯಾದ, ಭಾರವಾದ, ಗುರುತರವಾದ, ಶ್ರಮಸಾಧ್ಯ
Examples of onerous in a sentence
- [I]t has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful task.1910, Jack London, “The Golden Poppy”, in Revolution and Other Essays:
- 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.1945 January and February, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—III”, in Railway Magazine, page 13:
- However, given current sensibilities about individual privacy and data protection, the recording of oral data is becoming increasingly onerous for researchers[.]2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual...
- People with diabetes mellitus rely predominantly on finger pricking to measure blood levels of glucose, which can be onerous.2024 June, “A novel system for non-invasive measurement of blood levels of glucose”, in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, volume 20, →DOI, page...
Synonyms of onerous
Forms of onerous
| comparative | more onerous |
|---|---|
| superlative | most onerous |
Origin of onerous
Inherited from Middle English onerous, borrowed from Middle French onereux, from Old French onereus, a learned borrowing from Latin onerosus, from onus (“burden”) + -ōsus. Compare exonerate.
Words formed from onerous
Questions about onerous
- What does onerous mean?
- Onerous means imposing or constituting a physical, mental, or figurative load which can be borne only with effort; burdensome.
- What is onerous in Hindi?
- Onerous in Hindi is बोझिल (bojhil). See Onerous meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use onerous in a sentence?
- [I]t has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful task.
- What part of speech is onerous?
- Onerous is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce onerous?
- Onerous is pronounced /ˈɒnəɹəs/ (UK).
Words near onerous in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: onerous (page history and authors); onerous (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); onerous (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); onerous (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); onerous (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); onerous (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “onerous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/onerous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.