Toilsome

//ˈtɔɪlsəm// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Requiring continuous physical effort; laborious.

    "‘And you, Sir knight,’ / (Said she) ‘that taken have this toylesome paine / For wretched woman […]!’"

Adjective
  1. 1
    characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort wordnet

Example

More examples

"The road that leads to pleasure is downhill and very easy, with the result that one does not walk but is dragged along; the other which leads to self-control is uphill, toilsome no doubt but exceedingly profitable."

Etymology

From toil + -some.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.