different between awesome vs onerous

English

Etymology

From awe +? -some; compare Old English e?eful (“fearful; inspiring awe”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???s?m/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??s.?m/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /??s.?m/

Adjective

awesome (comparative more awesome or awesomer, superlative most awesome or awesomest)

1. (dated) Causing awe or terror; inspiring wonder or excitement. [from 1590–1600.]

   Synonyms: awe-inspiring; see also Thesaurus:awesome
2. (colloquial) Excellent, exciting, remarkable.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:excellent

Usage notes

The oldest meaning of awesome is of “something which inspires awe”, but the word is now also a common slang expression. It was originally so used in the United States, where it had featured strikingly in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, as used by Japan's Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to describe the "awesome" industrial potential of the United States. Consequently, as the word popularly became an expression for anything superb, in its original meaning it has tended to be replaced by the related word, awe-inspiring.

The comparative and superlative forms awesomer and awesomest are generally regarded as nonstandard.

Antonyms

• aweless

Derived terms

• awesome sauce (slang)
• awesomely
• awesomeness
• awesomenessness (nonce word, rare, nonstandard)
• awesometastic

Related terms

• awe-inspiring
• awful

Translations

Noun

awesome (uncountable)

1. (slang) Short for awesomeness: the quality, state, or essence of being awesome.

   Synonym: (slang) awesome sauce

   Antonyms: (slang) fail, (vulgar) shit, (slang) weaksauce

   • 2011, Gwen Hayes, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (2011), ?ISBN, page 6:

     Plus, her patent leather boots were made of awesome. They made her legs look longer and leaner.

   • 2011, Kevin Seccia, Punching Tom Hanks: Dropkicking Gorillas and Pummeling Zombified Ex-Presidents—A Guide to Beating Up Anything, St. Martin's Press (2011), ?ISBN, page 189:

     Swayze, of course, is the being of pure awesome who has by now conquered all of Heaven.

   • 2013, Carrie Jones, Captivate, Bloomsbury (2010), ?ISBN, page 150:

     “Your grandmother,” he mumbles into my hair as we cuddle on the couch, “is made of awesome.”

Further reading

• awesome (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Etymology

From Middle English onerous, from Middle French onereux, from Old French onereus, from Latin onerosus (“burdensome”), from onus (“load”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??n???s/, /???n???s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??n???s/, /?o?n???s/

Adjective

onerous (comparative more onerous, superlative most onerous)

1. imposing or constituting a physical, mental, or figurative load which can be borne only with effort; burdensome.
   • 1820, Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow":

     That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable.

   • 1910, Jack London, "The Golden Poppy" in Revolution and Other Essays:

     [I]t has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful task.

Synonyms

• (burdensome): demanding, difficult, taxing, wearing

Derived terms

• onerously

Related terms

Translations

Middle English

Alternative forms

• honerous, onerose, onerouse

Etymology

From Middle French onereux, from Old French onereus, from Latin onerosus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n??ru?s/, /??n?rus/

Adjective

onerous

1. (Late Middle English) onerous

Descendants

• English: onerous

References

• “oner?us, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-1-7.