arduous

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The Word of the Day for October 2 is: 

arduous   \AHR-juh-wus\  adjective 
     1 a : hard to accomplish or achieve : difficult  *b: marked 
by great labor or effort 
: strenuous 
     2 : hard to climb : steep

Example sentence:
     In the wake of the hurricane, residents face the arduous 
task of rebuilding.

Did you know?
     "To forgive is the most arduous pitch human nature can 
arrive at." When Richard Steele published that line in _The 
Guardian_ in 1709, he was using "arduous" in what was apparently 
a fairly new way for English writers in his day: to imply that 
something was steep or lofty as well as difficult. Steele's use 
is one of the earliest documented in English for that meaning, 
but he didn't commit it to paper until almost 200 years after 
the first uses of the word in its "hard to accomplish" sense. 
Although the "difficult" sense is older, the "steep" sense is 
very true to the word's origins; "arduous" derives from the 
Latin "arduus," which means "high" or "steep."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.