burdensome

Etymology

It is formed from English burden + -some,^[2][3][4] and it is also spelled burthensome.^[5] The base is from Old English byrðen (“a load, weight, charge, duty”), from Proto-Indo-European *bher- (“to carry”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the nature of a burden; heavy to bear, oppressive: 1578, in a book of Christian prayers.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives the same year,^[6] Etymonline the 1570s,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1570–80.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word followed burdenous, recorded from 1529 and meaning first literally heavy and then, from before 1535, figuratively onerous; that adjective had died out by the 19th century.^[2][3] From 1645, in Milton's Tetrachordon, it was used almost as a noun for the quality of being a burden.^[2] In Johnson's dictionary of 1755 it is glossed as grievous and troublesome to bear, with lines from Milton and Dryden.^[7] In American use from 1763 it could also describe something able to carry a good burden, a sense now obsolete.^[2]

Timeline

• 1578 – of the nature of a burden, onerous.^[2][6]
• 1645 – used as a quasi-noun, burdensomeness.^[2]
• 1763 – in American use, able to carry a good burden (now obsolete).^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Hard to carry or to bear; onerous or oppressive: a burdensome load of paperwork.^[6][8][2]

Word family

• burdensomely
• burdensomeness
• nonburdensome
• unburdensome

Related words

• burden
• burdenous

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary groups burdensome with onerous, oppressive, arduous and exacting: burdensome covers hardship of both mind and body, while onerous adds the sense of a figuratively heavy load that is irksome or annoying.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin