"toilsome" in the adjective sense
1. arduous, backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, hard, heavy, laborious, operose, punishing, toilsome
characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion especially physical effort
"worked their arduous way up the mining valley"
"a grueling campaign"
"hard labor"
"heavy work"
"heavy going"
"spent many laborious hours on the project"
"set a punishing pace"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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