Word of the Day: strenuous

The word strenuous has appeared in 79 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 22 in “How Do You Paddle a Disappearing River?” by Daniel Modlin:

Even in sections where the river deepened, it wasn’t easy. Instead of the current pulling us swiftly down the middle, the lower water levels forced our boats to drift in a serpentine formation, back and forth across the banks of the river. The banks provided another problem: For most of our trip, the right bank of the river — the Mexican side — was dominated by carrizo cane. Also known as border bamboo or giant reed, the cane, an invasive species, stretched off the bank for what I estimated as up to 15 feet high.

… That night, blistered, bruised and damp, I asked Michael as we sat on our sleeping pads if floating the Rio was always this strenuous and riddled with obstacles. “Not when there’s really water,” he said. In fact, as I later learned, most of the difficulties I encountered (beyond stepping in cow dung near the campsite), could be attributed to the river’s lower water levels and signs of the landscape shifting as a result, said Jeff Bennett, a hydrologist for the Rio Grande Joint Venture, a conservation group that strives to protect the river habitat.

Daily Word Challenge

Can you correctly use the word strenuous in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

If you want a better idea of how strenuous can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.

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The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.