operoseadj.

1546 G. Joye Refut. Byshop Winchesters Derke Declar. f. xxxviii What can be spoken more playnly,..all the workes of the lawe excluded from fayth in the accion of our iustificacion? Thus ye see your operose condicion clene excluded from this accion.

1660 J. Barwick Hieronikes iii. 141 I am not ignorant how hard a task this third and last part of my undertaking would be, if I should be operose in it.

a1734 R. North Examen (1740) i. iii. §3. 126 We cannot think such an operose Compiler of History..should be ignorant of so remarkable a Passage.

1805 W. Godwin Fleetwood I. v. 107 This operose and hard-working student.

1883 J. A. Symonds Ital. Byways 100 The atmosphere of operose indolence.

1995 New Republic (Nexis) 6 Feb. 26 He is an operose Bachelor of Music..who sat down with..the State Academic Edition of Chaikovsky's complete works at one elbow.

1659 H. More Immortality of Soul i. vi. 40 The Theory thereof may seem more operose and tedious to impatient wits.

1683 W. Cave Ecclesiastici 371 His Arguments..do not deserve an operose Confutation.

1705 Philos. Trans. 1704–05 (Royal Soc.) 24 1970 The Calculation of which (tho much more intricate and operose) would be equally attainable by our Theorem.

1756 S. Johnson Life Browne in Sir T. Browne Christian Morals (ed. 2) p. xix Browne might himself have obtained the same conviction by a method less operose.

1841 H. J. Stephen New Comm. Laws Eng. I. 237 The indirect and operose expedient of a fine or recovery.

1855 ‘G. Eliot’ Let. 25 June (1954) II. 206 Such sentences..make a style seem operose and unwieldy.

1864 F. C. Bowen Treat. Logic vii. 204 The Logicians invented the awkward, roundabout, and operose process which they called Reduction per impossibile.

1914 Amer. Jrnl. Internat. Law 8 315 If the evasive purpose be admitted or proved, we can never be found to accept as a substitute for the observance of the law, the means however operose, which have been employed to cover the breach of it.

1959 New Scientist 19 Nov. 983 Operose and scholarly collected editions.

1981 Internat. Affairs 57 506 This punishingly operose text bears the hallmarks of having been written by a committee.

1997 Chicago Tribune (Nexis) 8 May (Tempo section) 8 With three splendiferous CD-ROMs, users can complete these operose tasks expediently and efficiently.