monotonous
Boring because it never changes.
- The monotonous hum of the fan nearly sent the whole class to sleep.
- The motorway journey felt monotonous, the same grey road repeating hour after hour.
Similar: boring, dull, dreary
monotonous or tedious?
Monotonous is about sameness. Tedious is sameness that goes on too long.
Both mean boring, which is why they get swapped so freely, and the difference between them is time.
Monotonous is about something never changing. A fan's hum can be monotonous within seconds — it does not need to last long, it just needs to stay the same.
Tedious needs length. Copying out a whole dictionary page is tedious; copying out one line is not, however dull it is. If you can be bored of it immediately it is monotonous, and if the boredom comes from how long it drags on it is tedious.
Both words, side by side
tedious
Boring because it goes on too long and never changes.
- Copying out the whole dictionary page felt like the most tedious job in the world.
- Long motorway journeys feel tedious to Ella, hour after hour of the same grey road.
Similar: boring, dull, dreary
Why it costs marks
These two appear together in odd-one-out and closest-meaning questions precisely because they overlap. A child who knows only that both mean boring has no way to choose between them.
Definitions and example sentences on this page are the ones a child sees inside Wordrealm, taken from our list of over 1,100 words. It is free to browse, with nothing to sign up for.
Sitting the 11+ in Kent, Medway or Buckinghamshire?
Plain-English guides to each test, from the councils’ own pages: Kent Test · Medway Test · Bucks Secondary Transfer Test