arduous
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 30, 2023 is:\n \n
\n \n\n arduous • \\AHR-juh-wus\\ • adjective
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Arduous is an adjective used to describe something that is very difficult or strenuous.
\n\n// The gorgeous waterfall at the top of the mountain was worth the arduous hike.
\n\n\n \n \n\n Examples:
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\u201cAnd with [hockey player, Patrice] Bergeron now enjoying the retired life after 19 seasons spent with the Bruins, the six-time Selke Trophy winner acknowledged that [Zdeno] Chara has already tried to recruit him for some arduous training.\u201d \u2014 Conor Ryan, Boston.com, 21 Nov. 2023
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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Arduous isn\u2019t the type of word one expects to hear in a folk song\u2014it\u2019s a bit too formal\u2014but strenuous work and difficult journeys are the stuff of many a classic tune. Take \u201cThe Wayfaring Stranger,\u201d for an example, a somber song about life\u2019s travails performed by everyone from singer and activist Paul Robeson to country star Emmylou Harris: \u201cI know dark clouds will gather o\u2019er me / I know my pathway\u2019s rough and steep.\u201d Such a lyric gets at the dual literal/figurative nature of arduous, which comes from the Latin adjective arduus, meaning \u201chigh,\u201d \u201csteep,\u201d or \u201cdifficult.\u201d For quite a while after appearing in English in the mid-1500s, arduous hewed closely to the figurative \u201cstrenuous\u201d or \u201cdifficult\u201d sense until poet Alexander Pope invoked steepness when he wrote of \u201cthose arduous paths they trod\u201d in his 1711 work \u201cAn Essay on Criticism.\u201d To pen such a work at the age of 23, and in heroic couplets no less, must have been an arduous challenge indeed, but like the wayfaring stranger seeking a brighter land, Pope had his eyes on the prize.
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