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tedious

English

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WOTD – 26 February 2010
 
Francesco Brunery's painting A Tedious Conference (c. 1900), depicting clerics suffering from tedium during a meeting

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Etymology

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English tedi(um) +‎ -ous, from Old French tedieus, from Late Latin taediōsus, from Latin taedium (“weariness, tedium”).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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tedious (comparative more tedious, superlative most tedious)

  1. Boring, monotonous, time-consuming, wearisome, livelong.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:wearisome
    • 1672, [Andrew Marvell], The Rehearsal Transpros’d: Or, Animadversions upon a Late Book, Entituled, A Preface, Shewing what Grounds there are of Fears and Jealousies of Popery, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, pages 57–58:
      But in the mean time […] it looks all ſo like ſubterfuge and inveagling; it is ſo nauſeating and teadious a task, that no man thinks he ovvs the Author ſo much ſervice as to find out the reaſon of his ovvn Categoricalneſs for him.
    • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Great Storm Described, the Long-Boat Sent to Fetch Water, the Author Goes with It to Discover the Country. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), page [176]:
      However, upon a ſtrict Review, I blotted out ſeveral Paſſages of leſs Moment which were in my firſt Copy, for fear of being cenſured as tedious and trifling, whereof Travellers are often, perhaps not without Juſtice, accuſed.
    • 1782, William Cowper, “The Diverting History of John Gilpin, […]”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson;  […], published 1785, →OCLC, 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, 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; […]

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