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Onerous   Listen
adjective
Onerous  adj.  Burdensome; oppressive. "Too onerous a solicitude."
Onerous cause (Scots Law), a good and legal consideration; opposed to gratuitous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Onerous" Quotes from Famous Books



... his suspense grown too onerous for his strength of will, throwing caution and their understanding to the winds, he walked boldly into the Terminus, and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... to be welcomed by the "boss;" who at once engaged Uncle Mark and Mike to hew, while I was to undertake the less onerous task of driving ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... came to howl and tumble about the cottage, they naturally gravitated towards the scullery, which then virtually became the nursery, with a stout old seaman, of the name of Ogilvy, usually acting the part of head nurse. His duties were onerous, by reason of the strength of constitution, lungs, and muscles of the young Brands, whose ungovernable desire to play with that dangerous element from which heat is evolved, undoubtedly qualified them for the honorary ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... fettered by Restrictions which would not be borne by the Government or the people of a self-governing colony. These Restrictions are ineffective to bind, but they are certain to gall, and if taken together with onerous financial obligations to Great Britain, which whether just or not must have an air of hardness, and with the habitual presence in Ireland of a British army under the direction of the British Executive, lay an ample foundation for the ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... Bastiat to mean merely that export duties are not necessarily more onerous than import duties. The statement that all taxes are paid by the consumer, is liable to important modifications. An export duty may be laid in such way, and on such articles, that it will be paid wholly by the foreign consumer, without loss to the producing country, but it is only ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... gravity in his manner when he talked to Ida and her stepmother which was evidently intended to prepare them for the worst. He gave a peremptory order for a second nurse, an able-bodied experienced woman, who could relieve Towler in his now most onerous duties—duties growing hourly more painful, since the last development of the patient's delirium was a violent hatred of his attendant, who, as he believed, was always lying in wait to do him some injury. Dr. Mallison also advised that Mrs. Wendover should no longer occupy the bedroom ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... whole Douglas seems to have discharged his not very onerous duties acceptably. The more his fellow practitioners saw of him, the more respect they had for him. Moreover, they liked him personally. His wholesome frankness disarmed ill-natured opponents; his generosity made them fast friends. There was not an inn ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... talents, being unfettered by your antipathies, will shine with undimmed lustre. You have complained of late that the duties of the war department have become irksome to you; if so, I can give you an appointment less onerous to you, but equally important to the state. I am just now in need of an intelligent representative before the imperial Diet. This charge I commit to you, premising that you must start for your post immediately, that you may infuse some life into the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... prisoners at Loewestein, the post of turnkey was not a very onerous one, but rather a sort of sinecure, given after a ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... varlet, himself served at the table of his lord; the nobles treated each other likewise, according to their rank; and all the exactions which each submitted to from his superiors, and required to be paid to him by those below him, were looked upon not as onerous duties, but as rights and honours. The sentiment of dignity and of personal independence, which has become, so to say, the soul of modern society, did not exist at all, or at least but very slightly, amongst the Germans. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... shrunk to winding up the office clock and keeping Mr. Slocum firmly on his legs. The latter was by far the more onerous duty, for Mr. Slocum ran down two or three times in the course of every twenty-four hours, while the clock once wound ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... for that period, much the most notable among the foreign embassies in France. While those of the principal European powers, as for most of the time the French government itself, left the capital, it, with the representatives of two or three minor states, remained at its post. Outside of the very onerous function assumed by it at the request of the German government, it had other great cares and great opportunities for good. These appear to have been encountered and used with remarkable tact and energy. Its display of those qualities has been gratefully ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... of the case are these, Mr. Marryat. Owing to the failure, of Muhammud Ali, to fulfil the ridiculously onerous terms extorted from him, by some of his native allies, during the siege of Trichinopoli, several of them are in a state of discontent, which is likely soon to break out into open hostilities. The Rajahs ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... terms," Savine said. "Hold on until I have finished and then begin your talking. I'll offer you a minor partnership in my business instead. Take time, and keep your answer until I explain things in my offices, in case you find the terms onerous; but there are many men in this country who would be glad of the chance ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... business is finished somehow, since my brother will perhaps be contented to trot peaceably back to the hills, but I can't say that your friend Sher Singh has got anything like his deserts. He is to be recognised and, within reasonable limits, supported, provided he fulfils certain not very onerous conditions. Nisbet is to visit Agpur City and settle the preliminaries of the frontier business and the affair of the Rani Gulab Kur's jointure, and will probably remain there as Resident. Well, well! if Sher Singh ain't loyal to us in ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... secretary was not particularly onerous; but he had a dislike for all prolonged work; it gave him pain to ink his fingers; and the charms of Lady Vandeleur and her toilets drew him often from the library to the boudoir. He had the prettiest ways among women, could talk fashions with enjoyment, and was never ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... democracy. Our extreme gauche, which we call the Manchester School, employs its whole efforts in that direction. It has great energy, activity, and combination. The duties of Parliament and of Government have become so onerous, and the facing our democratic constituencies is so disagreeable, and an idle life of society, literature, art, and travelling has become so pleasant, that our younger aristocracy seem to be giving up politics, and hence ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... of spying on them, at first—it was simply to be rid of their onerous presence for a while, and getting on the bench was an afterthought. But as we came opposite camp, MacRae took a notion to look down and see what they were about. At a point which overlooked the bottom some two hundred yards from the east end of the Stone, we got down on our stomachs ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... which had been formed before the American Union the Federal Government demanded its supplies at the hands of the separate Governments; and if the measure it prescribed was onerous to any one of those bodies means were found to evade its claims: if the State was powerful, it had recourse to arms; if it was weak, it connived at the resistance which the law of the Union, its sovereign, met with, and resorted to inaction under the plea of inability. Under these circumstances ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... to be small necessity, however, for this active co-operation, for when the cheerful cavalcade started from the house a few mornings later, Mr. Lawrence Grant's onerous duties seemed to be simply confined to those of an ordinary cavalier at the side of Miss Clementina, a few paces in the rear of the party. But this safe distance gave them the opportunity of conversing without ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... onerous fines have been imposed upon American shipping in Spanish and colonial ports for slight irregularities in manifests. One case of hardship is specially worthy of attention. The bark Masonic, bound for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... cordiality, and assured him that he would maintain his sons and his nephews, the Chatillons, in the dignities they had attained under previous kings; at the same time, however, adding that, in compassion for the constable's age and long services, he had determined to relieve him of his onerous charges, and to give him full liberty to retire to his estates and obtain needful rest and diversion! Montmorency was too much of a courtier to be taken unawares, and promptly replied that he had come expressly ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... to express the hope that the action of the Commissioners, which in every respect was governed by a desire to promote the public interest, will receive the approval of the Privy Council, and be regarded by them as the satisfactory discharge of an onerous and ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... "plucking" the proctor's robes. This has been occasionally done by tradesmen in order to obtain payment of their "little bills;" but such a proceeding is very rare, and the proctor's promenade is usually undisturbed. The Rev. Philip Bliss, D.C.L., after holding the onerous post of Registrar of the University for many years, and discharging its duties in a way that called forth the unanimous thanks of the University, resigned ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... Great Britain, and if she chose to close them to us, or anybody else, she was quite within her rights. At all events, Lord Grenville declined to let us in, except in a very limited way and under most onerous conditions. The right of search and the right of impressment were simply the rights of the powerful over the weak. England wanted to get seamen where she could for her navy; and so long as she could violate ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... burdens of militarism which western civilization is presently carrying, have unbalanced budgets, which lead to inflation and to onerous burdens of debt and taxes. It seems unlikely that a group of warfare states like the top western European powers can escape the economic contraction which presently threatens them and regain solvency and stability through fiscal reforms ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... not pretend that I receive six hundred or even sixty letters a day, but I do receive a good many, and have told the public of the fact from time to time, under the pressure of their constantly increasing exertions. As it is extremely onerous, and is soon going to be impossible, for me to keep up the wide range of correspondence which has become a large part of my occupation, and tends to absorb all the vital force which is left me, I wish to enter into a final explanation with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... am certain that he does not wish their intimacy to ripen into love, and I have several times observed that he has taken pains to prevent them from being tte—tte. By the way, your instructions to me never to allow Sir Henry to go out alone will become very much more onerous if a love affair were to be added to our other difficulties. My popularity would soon suffer if I were to carry out your orders to ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... fighting men remained in the ranks, when the expedition arrived within a short distance of Ava. Not until the last Burmese army had been scattered did the court of Ava submit to the by no means onerous ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... commission of three officers, but as yet no navy yard existed. It was to be Farragut's particular duty to plan and build it up under the general instructions of the Department. His selection for this difficult and onerous, but at the same time very flattering, appointment was among the first evident results of the diligent, painstaking effort which had marked his professional career. By that, and by that only, had he as yet had any opportunity ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... normal training conditions, it would be fair play, and the acceptable thing, to rotate men and their junior leaders to such an onerous task as guard duty. But if a unit was "dead beat" after a hard march, and an officer, pursuing his line of duty, walked among his men, inspecting their blistered feet and doing all he could to ease each man's physical discomfort, he would then be using excessively poor judgment ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... opinion that free labour would be more profitable on the plantations than the work of slaves, which, being compulsory, was of the worst possible quality and the smallest possible quantity; then the charge of them before and after they are able to work is onerous, the cost of feeding and clothing them very considerable, and upon the whole he, a southern overseer, pronounced himself decidedly in favour of free labour, upon grounds of expediency. Having at the beginning of ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... Eleemosynary Age Primeval Belief Credulous Blame Culpable Breast Pectoral Being Essential Bosom Graminal, sinuous Boy, boyish Puerile Blood, bloody Sanguinary, sanguine Burden Onerous Beginning Initial Boundary Conterminous Brother Fraternal Bowels Visceral Body Corporeal Birth Natal, native Calf Vituline Carcass Cadaverous Cat Feline Cow Vaccine Country Rural, rustic Church Ecclesiastical Death Mortal Dog Canine Day Diurnal, meridian, ephemeral Disease Morbid East Oriental ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... Edmonton, and exactly two miles from Enfield. This arrangement evidently gave him satisfaction, and I fear it was the most placid period of his painful life; for now, with the exception of the duty he had to perform in the surgery—by no means an onerous one—his whole leisure hours were employed in indulging his passion for reading and translating. During his apprenticeship he ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... the home of a university professor, who had given me a very nice room looking out onto the handsome Salamanca square. My regimental duties were not very onerous and left me plenty of leisure time, which I used to study the Spanish language, which is, in my opinion, the most elegant and beautiful in Europe. It was at Salamanca that I saw, for the first time, the famous General Lasalle. He sold ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... to find them too onerous. As for my friends—they're an old chum of mine, Jack Winston, and his bride of a few months, the most exquisite specimen of an American girl I ever met. Perhaps you may have heard of her. She's the daughter of Chauncey Randolph, one of your millionaires. Look ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... Very fine of him to make a clean breast of it, I thought, and said so: also advised him to put what he had told me into writing to de Lisle, when we will relieve him and I promised for my part, to try and fit him with some honourable but less onerous job. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... evidently afraid to speak to Charity. To ask for her mercy was contrary to all his nature. He never dreamed that the dictagraph had brought her with him when he learned of Zada's intensely interesting condition, and her exceedingly onerous demands. He did not dare ask Charity for a divorce in order that he might legitimize this byblow of his. He could imagine only that she would use the information for some ruinous vengeance. So he dallied with ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... carried on by Messrs. Burns & MacIver. While James applied himself to the mercantile branch of the business, the direction of the shipping department devolved upon George, whose energy and sagacity rendered him well qualified for the onerous duties, and under whose able management the business gradually developed into a steam shipping concern second to none in ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... cet. But what is the most astonishing is that the companions of Venus and Amor, the most lovable of all divinities, the Graces, were also virgins. Juno became a virgin again every year, by bathing in the waters of a magic fountain; that must have rendered Jupiter's duties rather onerous. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... has the advantage of being theoretically simple, and easily understood by the people; and the different items of taxation, as laid down by law, cannot be said to be onerous. The following are ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... provided. But the American captains, on the other hand, are respectable, intelligent, and trustworthy men, almost without exception. The exigencies of the trade require such men; and any defect, either of capacity or integrity, would soon be brought to light by the onerous duties and responsibilities imposed upon them. Great latitude must be allowed them, or the voyage cannot be expected to turn out profitably. They perform the double duty of master and supercargo, and perhaps with the more success, as there can be no ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... General Stuart, with the cannon, remained in the rear, while Jackson's infantry attacked and carried the Federal retrenchments. Upon the second day, however, when Stuart assumed the command, Vincent's duties had been onerous and dangerous in the extreme. He was constantly carrying orders from one part of the field to the other, amid such a shower of shot and shell that it seemed marvelous that any one could exist within it. To his ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... proposed by the government, it is better to continue the present system of allowing each to do a little trading for himself. The auditors recommend that some changes be made in the duties levied on goods, which are onerous on the merchants. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... had elapsed," her brother went on, in a light narrative tone, "I'll grant that Romaine was of considerable service to us. He got Francis out of several scrapes, and he shoved me into a Government office, where the duties are not particularly onerous. Oh, yes, I owe ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... abounding in villages, wheat-fields, orchards, and melon-gardens. These days I find it incumbent on me to turn washer-woman occasionally, and, halting at the first little stream in this valley, I take upon myself the onerous duties of Wall Lung in Sacramento City, having for an interested and interesting audience two evil-looking kleptomaniacs, buffalo-herders dressed in next to nothing, who eye my garments drying on the bushes with lingering covetousness. It is scarcely necessary to add that I watch ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... Clara, the responsibilities of a guardian are always very onerous, and his duties not always very agreeable, especially when his ward is the sole heiress of a large property and the object of pursuit by fortune hunters and maneuverers, male and female. When such is the case, the duties and responsibilities ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... evidence that his surveys of property were done with extreme accuracy. Soon he further obtained the local Postmastership. This, the only position except the Presidency itself which he ever held in the Federal Government, was not onerous, for the mails were infrequent; he "carried the office around in his hat"; we are glad to be told that "his administration gave satisfaction." Once calamity threatened him; a creditor distrained on the horse ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... the mending of the town pump"; that "a gloom hath been cast over the entire community by the bone-felon upon Mr. Shaikspur's left thumb"; that "our immortal Shakespeere hath well discharged the onerous offices of road-overseer for the year past"; that "our sweete friend, Will Shakespear, will go fishing for trouts to-morrow with his good gossip, Ben Jonson, that hath come to be his guest a little season"; ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... 1817, she relieved the flagship of Sir Pulteney Malcolm. Thus it befel that Charles Jenkin, coming too late for the epic of the French wars, played a small part in the dreary and disgraceful afterpiece of St. Helena. Life on the guard-ship was onerous and irksome. The anchor was never lifted, sail never made, the great guns were silent; none was allowed on shore except on duty; all day the movements of the imperial captive were signalled to and fro; all night the boats rowed guard around the accessible portions of the ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all the original faults of the work upon its head, and I have been too much engaged in the practical construction of steam ships and steam engines to find time for the thorough revision which I knew the work required. At length, however, I have sufficiently disengaged myself from these onerous pursuits to accomplish this necessary revision; and I now offer the work to the public, with the confidence that it will be found better deserving of the favorable acceptation and high praise it has already received. There ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... probability of an attack. In other lands there is sure to be something to attract the mind. Staff officers in gay uniforms pass and repass in all the importance of official haste, cornets of cavalry bent on performing the onerous duties of galloper, and the pompous swagger of infantry drum-majors, all combine to vary the scene and amuse the eye. But in Turkey this is not so. All are equally dirty and unkempt, while the hideous attempts at music have very far from a soothing effect. An ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... Protector's new police-patrol fresh to its onerous task, solemnly marched down it once in twenty-four hours, keeping shoulder to shoulder, looking neither to right nor left, thankful when either issue was ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... puritanical type not uncommon to Virginia, he looked after the spiritual as well as the physical welfare of his men, and his chaplain or he read prayers at the head of his company every morning during the war. At first he was not popular with the men, he made the duties of camp life so onerous to them, it was "nothing but drilling and praying all the time," they said. But he had not commanded very long before they came to know the stuff that was in him. He had not been in service a year before he had had four horses shot under him, ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... the South! Let me beseech you to vex not this social stranger within your borders; the stranger who invades your swamps and drains them into his system for your comfort; who creeps through the slime of your sewers; who wrestles with the heat in your ditches and fields; who has borne your onerous burdens and cheered you with his song as he toiled; who has never heard the war whoop but that he has prepared for battle; whose one hope is to be allowed to live in peace by your side and develop his powers and those of his children that they may be factors in making of this land, the greatest ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... numbers as to smother the planet in atomic flame. Patrolman Willis could not imagine admitting that such a supposed fleet needed another fleet to help it. A military man, bluffing as Sergeant Madden bluffed, would not have dared offer any terms less onerous than abject surrender. But Sergeant Madden was a cop. It was not his purpose to make anybody surrender. His job was, ultimately, to ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... relevant and irrelevant, were discussed, interspersed with the usual number of anecdotes from the never-failing supply with which the President's mind was stored. It was a most interesting study to see these men relieved for the moment from the surroundings of their onerous official duties. The President, of course, was the centre of the group—kind, genial, thoughtful, tender-hearted, magnanimous Abraham Lincoln! It was difficult to know him without knowing him intimately, for he was as guileless and single-hearted as a child; and no man ever ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... place were not onerous, and I had plenty of chance for self-improvement. I had finished my course at the village school in spite of the calumny that was cast upon me, and now I continued my studies in private ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... Perhaps no one else would willingly accept such an onerous post. The making of magic was performed before the god with the assistance of the chief witch-doctor, an exceedingly lucrative post won upon merit, occupied by one Bakahenzie, a tall muscular man in the prime of life, whose bearing was that of the native autocrat, fierce ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... very tired of all this business; my duties are very onerous. I am trying my best to alleviate the condition of the prisoners and things are getting only worse. I am very anxious to get away from here; the duties ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... Florence Barclay says in her novels, which may seem a little sentimental, but they are of such a good moral effect, you can't supersede the Scriptures even in the most charming social circles. To say nothing of the blessings of poverty, I'm sure they're much happier than we are, with our onerous duties, I'm sure that if any of these ragamuffin anarchists and socialists and anti-militarists want to take over my committees they are welcome, if they'll take over the miserable headaches and worried hours ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... spent them on himself without fulfilling his engagements. Being a man sensitive about his reputation, he could not bear the dishonour of such reports, and wanted the whole matter to be cleared up; nor, although he was now old, did he shrink from the very onerous task of completing what he had begun so long ago. Consequently they came to strife together, and his antagonists were unable to prove payments to anything like the amount which had first been noised abroad; indeed, on the contrary, more than two thirds of the whole sum first stipulated by ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... I consider it a good sign of innate manliness and a natural spirit of independence when men are not afraid to dress like vagabonds and behave a little extravagantly, if it suits their taste. It must be said, however, that the police regulations or St. Petersburg, without being onerous or vexatious, are quite as good as those of any large city in Europe. When men are deprived of their political liberties, the least that can be done for them is to let them enjoy as much municipal freedom as may be consistent ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... and profitable than twice as many which treat of topics remotely related. A lady well known to the writer, of the least possible scholarly pretensions or literary notoriety, spent fifteen months of leisure, snatched by fragments from onerous family cares and brilliant social engagements, in reading the history of Greece as written by a great variety of authors and as illustrated by many ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... featured Councillor having pronounced a high eulogium on his Honor's power of endurance, and the onerous duties imposed upon him by the Governments which he so nobly sought to serve, and from whom the mere honor afforded but a meagre compensation, (inasmuch as he felt convinced the proverbial ingratitude of Governments ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... them into form in two months. Such at least was the order at the Newton stables; and during this autumn,—especially during these last days of October,—this order was obeyed with infinite alacrity, and with many preparations for coming joys. And there are other cares, less onerous indeed, but still needful. What good sportsman is too proud, or even too much engaged, to inspect his horse's gear,—and his own? Only let his horses' gear stand first in his mind! Let him be sure that the fit of a saddle is of more moment than the fit of a pair of breeches;—that ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... consequence of the further appreciation of gold will be to intensify the agricultural depression all over Europe. Most of the charges upon land having been fixed heretofore, they will weigh more and more heavily upon land-owners as gold rises in value. So, again, rents will become more onerous, and it will be found by and by that the settlement of the last few years was only provisional, and that a further reduction will become necessary. Also it is evident that the burden of debt, not only upon ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter

... I have described the work of the Quartermaster General is of an extremely onerous nature. Major Gen. Sir William Robertson has met what appeared to be almost insuperable difficulties with his characteristic energy, skill, and determination; and it is largely owing to his exertions that the hardships and sufferings of the troops—inseparable ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... produce most incredible amounts so soon as order had once become consolidated under the firm rule of Isabella; for, then, all kinds of useful labour began to fructify, especially those of agriculture, which had to sustain the weight of these onerous burdens. ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... said that it was the business of the property to keep the tools sharp, and that the men should not be called upon to pay for that service; that they ought, in justice to themselves and for the dignity of associated labor, to demand that this onerous tax be removed; and, to insure its removal, he declared a strike on. This was the reason, and the only reason, for the strike at Gordon's mine. Three hundred men quit work, and three hundred families suffered, many ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... now to recreate the scenes of that campaign. The people had been greatly disheartened. Every family was in bereavement, with a son lost and others still in the service. Taxes were onerous and economic and business conditions very bad. Then came this reaction, which seemed to promise an early victory for the Union. The orator naturally picked up the phrase, "The war is a failure"; then he pictured Farragut tied to the shrouds of his flag-ship; then he portrayed Grant's victories ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... the post of secretary was found for me with an English nobleman residing in Paris. I was to live in the house; my duties were sufficiently onerous, and I was to receive a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum; so that, after all, I was better off than I ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme

... there in the sheltered nooks and depressions, that some dependence would have to be placed for awhile on the barks of trees. Zigzag showed a meekness that roused distrust on the part of the boys. He must have found the heavy pack quite onerous, but he did not rebel. Whirlwind showed little lessening of his aristocratic tastes, and refused to mingle on anything like equal terms with the common ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... bursts with its growth, and says that in like manner Hamlet is a nature which breaks down under the weight of a duty too great for it to bear, he seems to have considered the character too much from one side. Had Hamlet actually killed himself to escape his too onerous commission, Goethe's conception of him would have been satisfactory enough. But Hamlet was hardly a sentimentalist, like Werther; on the contrary, he saw things only too clearly in the dry north-light of the intellect. It is chance that at last brings him to his end. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... necessarily exists for the future well-being of our beloved infant Princess, we have determined to take upon ourselves the onerous duties of her education. In accordance with the taste of her Royal mother for that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... he remarked. "They were in the second edition of the morning papers. They are onerous, without a doubt, but remember that as you go further east, all diplomacy becomes a matter of barter. They ask for so much first because they are prepared to take a great ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... endowed them with temperamental characteristics undesirable in the mothers of the race. Maternity is thrust upon these physically and mentally immature young wives, and they assume the principal role in a relationship that is onerous and exacting. We know that the duties of wife and mother require an intelligence which is rendered efficient only by maturity and experience. We know that many, if not most, young wives acquire habits which undermine their health ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... to his son was, it must be admitted, an onerous educational duty. It was contested by Muḥammad Effendi—by means which remind us unpleasantly of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, but unsuccessfully. Undeniably Baha-'ullah conferred on Abbas Effendi (Abdul Baha) the title of Centre of the Covenant, with the special duty annexed ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... the governor, who, like Louis XIV., might very readily have said, "L'etat, c'est moi!" concluded to form a cabinet to assist him in his onerous duties. He accordingly appointed J.G. Magrath Secretary of State; D.F. Jamison, Secretary of War; C.G. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury; A.C. Garlington, Secretary of the ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... Cluer," "I don't want you to tell me what you think;" such were the flowers of courtesy strewed from the bench upon Mr. Cluer's path. Our counsel's colleague in the case was Mr. Horace Avory, who represented Mr. Kemp. He also had a somewhat onerous duty ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... was composed of young men of good position in New Orleans. Most of them spoke in the French language, and nearly all had slaves in the field with them, although they ranked only as private soldiers, and had to perform the onerous duties of orderlies (or couriers, as they are called). On our way back we heard heavy firing on our left, from the direction in which General Withers was conducting his share of the reconnaissance ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... of the season, and the duties of the Household were proportionately and insupportably heavy. The Brigades were fairly worked to death, and the Indian service, in the heat of the Afghan war, was never more onerous than the campaigns that claimed the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... many sainted writers and the useful commentaries made by Jews have been suppressed.' A memorial to Sirleto, presented by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, points out the negligence of the Index-makers and their superficial discharge of onerous duties, praying that in future men of learning and honesty should be employed, and that they should receive payment for their labors.[123] These are the expostulations addressed by faithful Catholics, engaged in literary work demanded by the Vatican, to a Cardinal ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... that the suitor for a maiden's hand went to serve in the house of his future father-in-law for three or four years, and did whatever he was asked—in general, the most onerous duties. Then the parents of the bride had to give him a house, clothes, etc., and the marriage was celebrated. In many provinces, as for instance, in Bulacan, there is now no trace of this custom, because of the abuses which were committed. This custom, which we meet ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... The economy faces serious long-term problems: high but declining interest rates, increased foreign competition, exchange rate instability, a sizable merchandise trade deficit, large-scale unemployment and underemployment, and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 135%. Jamaica's onerous debt burden - the fourth highest per capita - is the result of government bailouts to ailing sectors of the economy, most notably the financial sector in the mid-to-late 1990s. Inflation also has declined, standing ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the metropolis, and especially of the largest portion of it, not included in the jurisdiction of the city of London. Every one felt that the unpaid magistracy were altogether inadequate to the discharge of their onerous duties; and many rules and ordinances had been enacted at various periods, for the preservation of the public peace, which had been nullified by their want of power and incompetency. To rectify this defect, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... considerations; but I cannot omit to return you my thanks for the unmerited kindness which has placed me in the position I occupy. I must add that the position is at once the more honorable and the more onerous, because I am called to follow a gentleman whose administration of the office has been ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... small part in the defeat of the submarine, but its task was onerous and the enemy and the elements unfortunately exacted a heavy toll. A German wireless message received in this country testified to the valiant manner in which one of ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... to her since her son, like so many other young men who belonged to patrician Nuremberg families, had fallen in the battle of Marchfield, and her daughter had accompanied her husband to his home in Augsburg. The onerous duties of her husband's office compelled him to leave her alone a great deal, and even in her extremely active life there were lonely hours when she needed a living creature that was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... onerous duty of explaining everything to you, Kate," said the Doctor, before Kate could reply. "I am going ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... you will. It will be your duty to do so. But, as I was saying, the house at Munster Court will be unsuitable to you as Lady Brotherton." On hearing this Mary pouted and made a grimace. "There is a dignity to be borne which, though it may be onerous, must be supported." ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... Secretary of War, was not without some little military experience, having served as a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, but he lacked every qualification for the onerous task before him. Senator Crawford of Georgia wrote to Monroe caustically that Eustis should have been forming general and comprehensive arrangements for the organization of the troops and for the prosecution of campaigns, instead of consuming his time ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... knew it, for his heart had told him long before he had thought of the prophecy; and now the choice between the gold and silver treasures seemed as nothing compared to winning her. Of all the admonitions which had been laid upon him by the words of the Cornish seeress, none seemed more onerous than this about the woman that he ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... they should not again receive either, except on condition of paying to the king a duty of four and a half per cent on every article exported from the island—and that they were to do in perpetuity. To this hard condition they were obliged to submit, and they have groaned under the onerous duty ever since. On every occasion, which offered any hope, they have sought the repeal of the tax, but have uniformly been defeated. When they saw that the abolition question was coming to a crisis, they resolved to make a last effort ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... converse a little with him in the most friendly manner, and in the course of conversation, as if of your own accord, sound Count Schwarzenberg as to his inclination to pay us a speedy visit in Prussia, the better to consult with us concerning the onerous duties of the administration. Then ask him casually, but in quite an innocent manner, whom he would recommend meanwhile as his substitute.[37] And now, God speed you, Schulenburg, go and carry out all my orders ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... of revision has proved to be far more onerous than was expected. In the course of twenty-one years the numerous changes which have occurred in India, not only in administrative arrangements, but of various other kinds, necessitate the emendation of notes ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... provided with picks, hammers, big nails for driving in the cracks, either for foot-hold or to bear ropes, the whole party were descending into the mine, with Dummy promoted, from his knowledge, to the onerous post of guide, leading, and Mark by his side or following next, according to the state ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... you have brought into the world, madame, she has reared and attended perfectly to six," replied the King. "The estate of Maintenon has, at the most, recompensed the education of the Comtes de Vegin, whose childhood was so onerous. And for the remainder of my little family, what have I ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... people, whose alien life in the midst of the native community struck him as one of the phases of modern civilisation worthy of note, if not particular study; for he fancied it destined to a wider future throughout Europe, as the conditions in England and America grow more tiresome and more onerous. They seemed to see very little of Italian society, and to be shut out from practical knowledge of the local life by the terms upon which they had themselves insisted. Our race finds its simplified and cheapened ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... disposal of ministers to bestow on a faithful or a wavering partisan. Young "honourables" and other needy scions of the governing classes have little ambition to undertake civic duties, while they are only onerous and expensive. Let the wedge be first applied. Let "reform" worm its way into the constitution of the Corporation, and then by degrees the whole edifice may gradually be subverted. Stipendiary magistracies and paid offices of any kind, if not too ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... had got some pageship or the like here in Wurtemberg, recollected that he had a young Sister at home; pretty and artful, who perhaps might do a stroke of work here. He sends for the young Sister; very pretty indeed, and a gentlewoman by birth, though penniless. He borrows clothes for her (by onerous contract with the haberdashers, it is said, being poor to a degree); he easily gets her introduced to the Ducal Soirees; bids her—She knows what to do? Right well she knows what; catches, with her piquant face, the dull eye of Eberhard Ludwig, kindles Eberhard Ludwig, and will ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... by onerous duties and stung by the injustice of a refusal to allow her the ordinary remedy against unconstitutional legislation, asserted the right, as a sovereign State, to nullify the law. This conflict between the authority ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... their merits, and most of the latter were only too ready to accept the implied dictum that men who work about a temple must be experts in theology! The principles upon which Royal Commissions and Select Committees are sometimes appointed and entrusted with the onerous duty of deciding upon far-reaching industrial problems, affecting the progress of trade and manufactures in the present day, involve exactly the same kind of fallacy. Men are selected to pronounce judgment upon the proposals of their rivals in trade, and ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... immediately held which decided to send out forty-three picked men to give battle; and, for the commander of this party, Kit Carson was unanimously elected. The fifty-five men left behind under Mr. Fontenelle had the onerous duty of guarding the animals and equipage. It was a part of the programme, also, that the latter force should move on slowly and act as a reserve ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... better acquaintance. On your side you tell me that you are in need of some one to replace your Figaro—your Felicien, I think you called him. Whilst it may be presumptuous of me to hope that I could discharge an office so varied and so onerous..." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... which sparkles at my side, Her Majesty the Empress. A native of this country, a model of all the virtues of a German princess, it is her I have to thank that I am in a position joyfully to perform the onerous ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... Colle was made the same day, and Janice assumed her new charge. It was, as it proved, not a very onerous one, for the children were well mannered for their years, and, young as they were, in the German method they were kept pretty steadily at tasks, while an old servant of the general, a German Yager, was only too delighted at any time to assume care of them. Janice herself slept ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... numerous. But a Government mail subsidy of $858,000 annually promised a sound financial basis, and made the task of capitalization possible. It seems not unlikely that the vicissitudes of the line were largely the result of this subsidy, for one of its conditions was extremely onerous: namely, that the vessels making twenty-six voyages annually between New York and Liverpool, should always make the passage in better time than the British Cunard line, which was then in its eighth year. However, the Collins line met the exaction bravely. Four vessels ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... in honor of it consisted, perhaps, of twenty men, nearly a third of whom were of that class of Yankees who are particularly noisy and particularly conspicuous in all celebrations where it is each man's most onerous duty to get what is technically called "tight." The man who headed the procession was a complete comic poem in his own individual self. He was a person of Falstaffian proportions and coloring, and if a brandy-barrel ever does "come alive," and, donning a red shirt and buckskin trousers, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... said Mr. Simlins. "I feel it now! Never ploughin' made my back ache like learnin'. I wonder whatever they made me school trustee for, seein' I hate it like pison. But s'pose we mustn't quarrel with onerous duties," said the farmer, carrying on sighing and bread and butter and tea very harmoniously together. "I shouldn't mind takin' a look at your last copy-book, Joe, if ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... instance of those who were cut off, in the very vigor of manhood, from worldly dignities and the exercise of the painful and inauspicious duties of governor-general of the Netherlands. Don Francisco de Mello, a nobleman of highly reputed talents, was the next who obtained this onerous situation. He commenced his governorship by a succession of military operations, by which, like most of his predecessors, he is alone distinguished. Acts of civil administration are scarcely noticed by the historians of these men. Not one of them, with the exception of the archduke Albert, seems ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... his unbending authority. If he was stern, exacting the utmost, and holding them to a strict accountability for violations of law, they knew that his least word of promise was certain of fulfillment. They did not find his rule too onerous under those conditions. While he held sway, the Western Indian country was in an unequaled ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton

... time a keen taste for the summer joys of Millbrook, and the family obligation which, for several months of the year, kept him at his aunt's side (Mrs. Vance was a childless widow and he filled the onerous post of favorite nephew) gave a sense of compulsion to the light occupations that chequered his leisure. Mrs. Vance, who fancied herself lonely when he was away, was too much engaged with notes, telegrams and arriving and departing guests, to ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... for books of this class (not MSS.) were paper and parchment, the latter very often prepared with very slight care, but the former of remarkable strength and durability. The cost must have been at first very onerous; but impressions of ancient volumes were usually limited. By degrees, fine vellum, alike conspicuous for its delicacy of quality and beauty of tone, was introduced, and became fashionable among the patrons of literature in Italy and ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... Sir Percy himself, he was universally voted to be totally unqualified for the onerous post he had taken upon himself. His chief qualifications for it seemed to consist in his blind adoration for her, his great wealth and the high favour in which he stood at the English court; but London society thought that, taking into ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... of goods, and an equitable regime for international commerce. The other States which had inherited the Habsburg Empire were, all of them, faced with the same demands; and they objected that to sign such Articles was inconsistent with their sovereignty. The most onerous item—relating to the racial and religious minorities—had been imposed—at America's instance, owing to the manner in which the Jews were treated in Roumania, despite King Charles' promises in 1878. The Yugoslavs, with a far smaller number of Jews and no Jewish outcry, were concerned only ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... the Council that we meet under these circumstances. Let me trust that you will be able to dispel certain suspicions, and that the frankness of your answers to the questions to be propounded will lighten for you and make less onerous for us the sad duty ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... your Highness's most honourable Commons do pretend that divers of the constitutions provincial, which have been heretofore enacted, be not only much prejudicial to your Highness's prerogative royal, but be also overmuch onerous to your said Commons, we, your most humble servants for the consideration before said, be contented to refer all the said constitutions to the judgment of your Grace only. And whatsoever of the same shall finally be found prejudicial and overmuch onerous as is pretended, we offer and promise ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... the post of Secretary to Napoleon from the time of Bourrienne's disgrace in 1802, had been nearly killed by the hardships of the Russian campaign, and now received an honourable and responsible but less onerous post. He remained with the Empress till 7th May 1815, when, finding that she would not return to her husband, he left her ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... power vested in the President imposes delicate and onerous duties. So far as it is possible to be informed, I shall make honesty, capacity, and fidelity indispensable prerequisites to the bestowal of office, and the absence of either of these qualities shall be deemed sufficient cause ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various



Words linked to "Onerous" :   heavy, burdensome, taxing



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