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RIGOROUS
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Demanding strict attention to rules and procedures
Example:
stringent safety measures
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
demanding (requiring more than usually expected or thought due; especially great patience and effort and skill)
Derivation:
rigor; rigorousness (excessive sternness)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Rigidly accurate; allowing no deviation from a standard
Example:
a strict vegetarian
Synonyms:
rigorous; strict
Classified under:
Similar:
exact (marked by strict and particular and complete accordance with fact)
Derivation:
rigor (the quality of being valid and rigorous)
rigorousness (excessive sternness)
Context examples:
Yet, as to myself, I must confess, having never been designed for a courtier, either by my birth or education, I was so ill a judge of things, that I could not discover the lenity and favour of this sentence, but conceived it (perhaps erroneously) rather to be rigorous than gentle.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I answered in a faint voice, that death would have been too great a happiness; that although I could not blame the assembly’s exhortation, or the urgency of his friends; yet, in my weak and corrupt judgment, I thought it might consist with reason to have been less rigorous; that I could not swim a league, and probably the nearest land to theirs might be distant above a hundred: that many materials, necessary for making a small vessel to carry me off, were wholly wanting in this country; which, however, I would attempt, in obedience and gratitude to his honour, although I concluded the thing to be impossible, and therefore looked on myself as already devoted to destruction; that the certain prospect of an unnatural death was the least of my evils; for, supposing I should escape with life by some strange adventure, how could I think with temper of passing my days among Yahoos, and relapsing into my old corruptions, for want of examples to lead and keep me within the paths of virtue? that I knew too well upon what solid reasons all the determinations of the wise Houyhnhnms were founded, not to be shaken by arguments of mine, a miserable Yahoo; and therefore, after presenting him with my humble thanks for the offer of his servants’ assistance in making a vessel, and desiring a reasonable time for so difficult a work, I told him I would endeavour to preserve a wretched being; and if ever I returned to England, was not without hopes of being useful to my own species, by celebrating the praises of the renowned Houyhnhnms, and proposing their virtues to the imitation of mankind.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
