Meanings
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1
adj
requiring prolonged, tiring effort; laborious
The rescue team began the toilsome climb before sunrise.
Thesaurus
Etymology
Formed in English from toil + -some, the adjective-forming suffix meaning 'characterized by' or 'causing.' Toil came through Anglo-French from a word for entanglement or a snare and developed the sense of exhausting labor; toilsome therefore describes work or travel that causes such toil.