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rigorous
used in a sentence

3 meanings
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1  —as in:
we follow a rigorous procedure
Definition thorough and careful procedures
  • She followed the procedures rigorously.
rigorously = thoroughly and carefully
Other Uses (with this meaning)
  • rigorous logic
  • My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details.
    Bram Stoker  --  Dracula
    • rigorously = strictly
  • We all submitted to a rigorous search.
    Agatha Christie  --  And Then There Were None
    • rigorous = thorough and careful
  • and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises.
    Edgar Allan Poe  --  The Black Cat
    • rigorous = thorough and careful
  • Had all regrets been punished as rigorously as...
    Nathaniel Hawthorne  --  The Celestial Railroad
    • rigorously = thoroughly
  • Everything speaks of a hasty departure or a rigorous search or both.
    Anthony Doerr  --  All the Light We Cannot See
  • By itself, the regimen proposed here, when followed rigorously, can purify the foulest breath.
    Laura Esquivel  --  Like Water for Chocolate
    • rigorously = thoroughly and carefully
  • Unsatisfied, he punched in the CHECKLIM program, a more rigorous testing of the circuit banks.
    Michael Crichton  --  The Andromeda Strain
    • rigorous = thorough and careful
  • ...they should be determined by rigorous scientific criteria.
    Robert A. Heinlein  --  Tunnel In the Sky
rigorous = thorough and careful

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google®Dictionary list — Onelook.com®
2  —as in:
a rigorous math class
Definition difficult and demanding
  • The class was equally interesting and rigorous.
rigorous = difficult and demanding
Other Uses (with this meaning)
  • Navy SEALs go through an incredibly rigorous qualification and training program.
    • rigorous = difficult and demanding
  • He measured himself and those around him by an impossibly rigorous moral code.
    Jon Krakauer  --  Into the Wild
    • rigorous = difficult and demanding
  • He read rigorously for several days, caught a few small errors, and penciled in supporting facts, especially about his evolved musical tastes.
    Ron Suskind  --  A Hope in the Unseen
    • rigorously = with energetic effort (in a difficult and demanding manner)
  • ...the moose appeared in greater abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and less rigorous valleys.
    Jack London  --  The Call of the Wild
    • rigorous = difficult and demanding
  • ...she would have no idea of the rigors of running a hospital in Africa.
    Gloria Whelan  --  Listening for Lions
    • rigors = difficulties (things that are difficult and demanding)
  • They would be tough, hardy bugs, able to withstand the rigors of space, and they would grow and duplicate and divide.
    Michael Crichton  --  The Andromeda Strain
    • rigors = difficulties (things that are difficult and demanding)
  • from a rigorous life outdoors on a work farm
    Ken Kesey  --  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
    • rigorous = difficult and demanding
  • Also, countless children who passed initial screenings but who later failed to meet more rigorous racial tests were exterminated—some at Auschwitz.
    William Styron  --  Sophie's Choice
    • rigorous = difficult and demanding
  • To hear him tell it, they were marble-lined palaces, an escape from the rigors of the newsroom.
    Rick Bragg  --  All Over but the Shoutin'
rigors = difficulties (things that are difficult and demanding)

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google®Dictionary list — Onelook.com®
3  —as in:
rigorous enforcement
Definition strict when enforcing rules
  • She supports a rigorous application of the law.
rigorous = strict when enforcing rules
Other Uses (with this meaning)
  • rigorous discipline
  • In college McCandless began emulating Tolstoy's asceticism and moral rigor to a degree that first astonished, and then alarmed, those who were close to him.
    Jon Krakauer  --  Into the Wild
    • rigor = strictness (when enforcing rules)
  • the rigour of severest law
    William Shakespeare  --  Romeo and Juliet
    • rigour = strict enforcement
  • His stern measures as Director were given an odd legitimacy by his personal life, the rigor of his insistent celibacy.
    Don DeLillo  --  Underworld
    • rigor = strictness (when enforcing rules)
  • Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,
    William Shakespeare  --  The Comedy of Errors
    • rigorous = strict
  • The evidence shows that he had been exceptionally dedicated, and it is precisely that rigorous and unbending attitude of spirit—the concept of duty and obedience above all which dwells unshakably in the mind of every good soldier—that gives his memoirs a desolating convincingness.
    William Styron  --  Sophie's Choice
    • rigorous = strict when enforcing rules
  • Among other things, he was rigorously conventional and had quickly accommodated himself to McGraw-Hill's tidy, colorless and archconservative mold.
    William Styron  --  Sophie's Choice
  • Then I tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness.
    Wells, H.G.  --  The Time Machine

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google®Dictionary list — Onelook.com®
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