tiresome

adjective

tire·​some ˈtī(-ə)r-səm 

: wearisome, tedious

a tiresome lecture

tiresomely adverb

tiresomeness noun

Synonyms

• arid
• boring
• colorless
• drab
• dreary
• drudging
• dry
• dull
• dusty
• flat
• heavy
• ho-hum
• humdrum
• jading
• jejune
• leaden
• mind-numbing
• monochromatic
• monotonous
• numbing
• old
• pedestrian
• ponderous
• slow
• stale
• stodgy
• stuffy
• stupid
• tame
• tedious
• tiring
• uninteresting
• wearisome
• weary
• wearying

Examples of tiresome in a Sentence

All those stories about his childhood can become tiresome after a while.

what a tiresome church service that turned out to be

Recent Examples on the Web

None of them are written with any specificity, though the actors manage to land the lines and elicit a few chuckles here and there — except for a tiresome twosome who try to speak with a Brooklyn accent for the entirety of the movie. —Murtada Elfadl, Variety, 3 Oct. 2024

And then, after a while, that narrative started to feel tiresome. —Julyssa Lopez, Rolling Stone, 1 Oct. 2024

The Bottom Line Cutting through all the tiresome finger-pointing about who is responsible for what, the real problem with plastics and plastics recycling boils down to demand: While there is tremendous, growing demand for plastics, the demand for recycling them remains intractably low. —David Blackmon, Forbes, 24 Sep. 2024

Plus there’s a lot of tiresome hand-wringing over guns, which seemed to be the biggest issue in every episode in the first season. —Michael Alan Connelly, Vulture, 1 July 2024

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1520, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

tiresome

adjective

tire·​some ˈtī(ə)r-səm 

: likely to tire one because of length or dullness : boring

a tiresome lecture

tiresomely adverb