laborious

adjective

1 tunneling was a laborious and dangerous job:

arduous, hard, heavy, difficult, strenuous, grueling, murderous, punishing, exacting, tough, formidable, onerous, burdensome, back-breaking, trying, uphill, relentless, stiff, challenging, Herculean;

tiring, fatiguing, exhausting, wearying, wearing, taxing, enervating, demanding, wearisome;

tedious, boring, irksome;

British, informal knackering;

archaic toilsome;

rare exigent.

▷antonyms easy, simple.

2 Doug's slow laborious style:

labored, strained, forced, contrived, affected, studied, stiff, stilted, unnatural, artificial, overdone, overwrought, heavy, ponderous, convoluted, not fluent, elaborate, overelaborate, intricate, ornate, prolix.

▷antonyms effortless, natural.