laborious
Needing a lot of hard, slow work.
laborious in a sentence
- Digging the vegetable patch by hand was laborious, and it took the whole weekend.
- Copying the whole poem in fancy lettering was laborious and took Amir three evenings.
Try an 11+ style question
Verbal reasoning papers often ask about a word like this.
Which word is closest in meaning to laborious?
- Ahard
- Blight
- Csimple
- Deasy
Show the answer
A: hard. The other three mean the opposite of laborious.
Which word is most nearly opposite in meaning to laborious?
- Atiring
- Beasy
- Ctough
- Dhard
Show the answer
B: easy. The other three mean nearly the same as laborious.
Words that mean something similar
hard, tough, tiring
Words that mean the opposite
easy, simple, light
More words about movement & action
- languid: Slow, relaxed and without energy.
- leisurely: Slow, relaxed and unhurried.
- limber: Bending and moving easily.
- lithe: Moving in a smooth, graceful and bendy way.
- loiter: To hang around a place with nothing to do.
- lope: To run with long, easy strides.
- lumber: To move in a slow, heavy and clumsy way.
- lunge: To make a sudden powerful movement towards something.
More words to explore
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