tedium

noun

te·​di·​um ˈtē-dē-əm 

1

: the quality or state of being tedious : tediousness

also : boredom

2

: a tedious period of time

Synonyms

• boredom

Examples of tedium in a Sentence

The movie was three hours of tedium.

I took a day off to relieve the tedium of work.

Recent Examples on the Web

Google's new tool lets users search for flight options using natural language, rather than having to go through the tedium of searching for an endless combination of dates and destinations to find a good deal. —Zach Wichter, USA Today, 14 Aug. 2025

GitHub's Copilot reduces the tedium of writing boilerplate functions by autocompleting repetitive code patterns. —Gabriel Snyder, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 June 2025

Boredom can sometimes feel like a bygone luxury in an age of screens and constant distractions—yet even with all the content in the world at our fingertips, tedium manages to creep in. —Rhian Sasseen, The Atlantic, 29 May 2025

On the spectrum of managerial chores, writing a job description probably falls somewhere between conducting employee performance reviews and filing expense reports — high on tedium, low on immediate gratification. —Rebecca Knight, Harvard Business Review, 16 Jan. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Latin taedium disgust, irksomeness, from taedēre to disgust, weary

First Known Use

1662, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for tedium

• medium
• cypripedium
• intermedium

Kids Definition

tedium

noun

te·​di·​um ˈtēd-ē-əm 

: the quality or state of being tedious : boredom