Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Tiresome by reason of length, slowness, or dullness; boring. synonym: boring.
  • adjective Obsolete Moving or progressing very slowly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Wearisome; irksome; tiresome.
  • Annoying; disagreeable; offensive; uncongenial.
  • Slow; slow-going: as, a tedious course.
  • Synonyms Tiresome, Irksome, etc. See wearisome.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Involving tedium; tiresome from continuance, prolixity, slowness, or the like; wearisome.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Boring, monotonous, time consuming, wearisome.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness
  • adjective using or containing too many words

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Late Latin taediōsus, from Latin taedium, tedium.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French tedieus, from Late Latin taediōsus, from Latin taedium ("weariness, tedium").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word tedious.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Sounds like the letters T D S.

    May 17, 2008

  • SCARECROW

    Oh, I'm not feeling at all well. You see,

    it's very tedious being stuck up here all

    day long with a pole up your back.

    June 11, 2010