Rigorous

How to spell rigorous

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce rigorous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rigorous mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely thorough, exact, and demanding in standards or method.

Rigorous in a sentence

• The new drug passed a rigorous series of clinical trials.

• Their accountant kept rigorous records of every transaction.

Where does rigorous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun rigor, which literally meant 'stiffness' or 'hardness', the same sense behind the modern medical phrase rigor mortis for the stiffening of a body after death. From rigor came the adjective rigorosus, meaning 'severe' or 'unyielding', and English took it up through Old French rigoureux during the late fourteenth century. The original physical idea of something stiff and inflexible shifted into the figurative meaning we now use: strict, demanding, and exact. Note the spelling trap created by the suffix; although British English keeps the spelling 'rigour' for the noun, the adjective drops the 'u' in every dialect and is always 'rigorous', never 'rigourous'. The same root survives in 'rigid', which keeps the literal sense of being hard to bend.

How the word is built

• rigor- (from Latin rigor: stiffness, hardness)
• -ous (adjective suffix: full of)