The DICT Development Group

  Toilsome \Toil"some\ (toil"s[u^]m), a.
     Attended with toil, or fatigue and pain; laborious;
     wearisome; as, toilsome work.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           What can be toilsome in these pleasant walks? --Milton.
     [1913 Webster] -- Toil"some*ly, adv. -- Toil"some*ness,
     n.
     [1913 Webster]

  toilsome
      adj 1: characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion;
             especially physical effort; "worked their arduous way up
             the mining valley"; "a grueling campaign"; "hard labor";
             "heavy work"; "heavy going"; "spent many laborious hours
             on the project"; "set a punishing pace" [syn: arduous,
             backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, hard, heavy,
             laborious, operose, punishing, toilsome]

  69 Moby Thesaurus words for "toilsome":
     Herculean, abstruse, arduous, backbreaking, brutal, burdensome,
     complex, critical, crushing, delicate, demanding, difficile,
     difficult, draining, effortful, enervating, exacting, exhausting,
     fatiguesome, fatiguing, forced, formidable, grueling, hairy, hard,
     hard-earned, hard-fought, heavy, hefty, intricate, jawbreaking,
     killing, knotted, knotty, labored, laborious, mean, no picnic,
     not easy, onerous, operose, oppressive, painful, punishing,
     rigorous, rough, rugged, set with thorns, severe, spiny, steep,
     strained, straining, strenuous, stressful, thorny, ticklish,
     tiresome, tiring, tough, tricky, troublesome, trying, uphill,
     weariful, wearing, wearisome, wearying, wicked