onerous.

Demanding enough effort or responsibility to become burdensome.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• onerous duty
• onerous conditions

On the page

An onerous duty fell to the youngest officer.

The contract imposed onerous conditions.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary. Forms: Comparative more onerous; superlative most onerous where gradation is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.