onerous
Meaning
involving a great deal of effort, trouble, or difficulty; burdensome.
Structure
Usage
The administrative tasks became an onerous duty for the small team.
She found the terms of the contract to be financially onerous.
The government lifted the onerous restrictions on trade.
Etymology
The word 'onerous' originates from the Latin adjective onerosus, meaning "burdensome," which itself derives from the noun onus (genitive oneris), meaning "load" or "burden." This Latin root can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root h₃enh₂-, which carried the sense of "to load" or "to burden." The semantic journey is direct and logical: the literal concept of a physical load evolved into the abstract sense of a heavy responsibility or a difficult, troublesome obligation. The suffix -ous consistently imparts the meaning "full of," thus making 'onerous' literally mean "full of burden."
Analysis
oner (from Latin onus, meaning "load, burden"); ous (a suffix forming adjectives, from Latin -osus, meaning "full of, characterized by").