irksome

irksome, tiresome, wearisome, tedious, boring mean burdensome because tiring or boring or both.

A person or thing is irksome that inspires distaste, reluctance, or impatience because of its demand for effort not made easy by interest

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the difficulty of grasping abstract statements made learning very irksome to me— Symonds

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I did not feel any longer ... the restless and irksome desire to contrive skimpy rendezvous— Edmund Wilson

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he laid down his irksome editorial duties and spent the next fifteen years in farming—F. H. Chase

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A person or thing is tiresome that is dull and unenlivening and therefore is either intensely boring or soon productive of fatigue

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it is tiresome to be funny for a whole evening— Scott

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the second curate was Chator, who was so good as sometimes to be nearly tiresome— Mackenzie

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we think of rain as tiresome and uncomfortable— Binyon

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the importunity of the little boys was tiresome when one wanted to be alone— Huxley

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A person or, especially, a thing is wearisome that exhausts one's strength or patience through long-continued or constant call for effort, exertion, or attention, or through tiresome uniformity of character

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these high wild hills and rough uneven ways draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome—Shak.

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the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits— Wilde

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the acquisition of exact knowledge is apt to be wearisome, but it is essential to every kind of excellence— Russell

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A person or thing is tedious that is tiresomely monotonous, slow, or prolix

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life is as tedious as a twice told tale vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man— Shak.

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they had no longer any surprises for me ... I knew pretty well what they would say; even their love affairs had a tedious banality— Maugham

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A person or thing is boring that causes boredom; the term is perhaps the most positive of the group since it implies an active depressing, wearying, or annoying

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the story is badly cluttered by unnecessary and boring wordiness— New Yorker

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he's so boring .... I hate boring people. I'm out for a good time— Lowry

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Analogous words: dull, *stupid, slow: fatiguing, exhausting, fagging, tiring (see TIRE vb)

Antonyms: absorbing, engrossing