tedious
English
WOTD – 26 February 2010
![](Images/wiktionary/Francesco_Brunery%252C_A_Tedious_Conference_(19th%E2%80%9320th_century).jpg.webp)
Francesco Brunery's painting A Tedious Conference (c. 1900), depicting clerics suffering from tedium during a meeting
Alternative forms
- tædious (archaic)
- teedyus
Etymology
English tedi(um) + -ous, from Old French tedieus, from Late Latin taediōsus, from Latin taedium (“weariness, tedium”).
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈtiː.dɪəs/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈti.di.əs/, /ˈti.d͡ʒəs/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -iːdiəs
Adjective
tedious (comparative more tedious, superlative most tedious)
- Boring, monotonous, time-consuming, wearisome.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:wearisome
- 1782, William Cowper, “The Diverting History of John Gilpin, […]”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], published 1785, OCLC 228757725, page 343:
- John Gilpin's ſpouse ſaid to her dear, / Though wedded we have been / Theſe twice ten tedious years, yet we / No holiday have ſeen.
- 1891, Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Style”, in T[homas] Bailey Saunders, transl., The Art of Literature: A Series of Essays [...] Selected and Translated with a Preface (Schopenhauer Series; 4), New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Co.; London: Swan Sonnenschien & Co., Lim., OCLC 472461599, pages 24–25 and 26:
- [pages 24–25] The very fact that these commonplace authors are never more than half-conscious when they write, would be enough to account for their dulness of mind and the tedious things they produce. […] [page 26] The other kind of tediousness is only relative: a reader may find a work dull because he has no interest in the question treated of in it, and this means that his intellect is restricted. The best work may, therefore, be tedious subjectively, tedious, I mean, to this or that particular person; […]
Derived terms
- tediously
- tediousness
Related terms
- tedium
Translations
boring, monotonous
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Anagrams
- Outside, dies out, outside, side out, sudoite