a. [f. TIRE v.1 + -SOME; cf. meddlesome, wearisome.]
1. Having the property of tiring by continuance, sameness, or lack of interest; wearisome, tedious.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, lxvi. 82. I wait [it] is for me provydit, Bot sa done tyrsum [v.r. tyresum] it is to byd it.
1603. Daniel, Def. Ryme, in Panegyr., etc., H vj. Those continuall cadences of couplets … are very tyresome, and vnpleasing.
1697. Dryden, Virg., Ess. Georgics (1721), I. 203. The inculcating Precept upon Precept, will at length prove tiresome to the Reader.
1724. Caledonian Mercury, 2 June, 3. The Man that reads, may know the Length of his Time, but it will never seem tiresome to him, because of the Pleasure it gives his Mind.
1778. Miss Burney, Evelina (1791), I. xii. 33. London soon grows tiresome.
1854. Lewis, Lett. (1870), 279. It is slow, tiresome work.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), IV. 350. What a tiresome being is a man who is fond of talking.
b. loosely. Troublesome, disagreeable, unpleasant; irksome, annoying, vexatious. colloq.
1798. Charlotte Smith, Yng. Philos., I. 11. The tiresome custom you have got of never being ready.
1836. Backwoods of Canada, 237. The tiresome things fell to pieces directly they became dry.
1862. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett. (1883), III. 99. At the top of the house he is safe enough from tiresome interruptions.
1898. Flor. Montgomery, Tony, 12. A tiresome fidgety schoolboy as a travelling companion.
† 2. Causing physical fatigue; fatiguing, tiring. Obs. (Now merged in sense 1.)
1598. Hakluyt, Voy., I. 612. The way was all of dry deepe slyding sand…, and by that meanes so tiresome and painefull as might be.
1710. Philips, Pastorals, ii. 16. The tiresome Burden doubles its Increase.
1725. Swift, Lett. to Sheridan, 11 Sept. In an employment precarious and tiresome,… this new weight of party malice had struck you down.
1728. Morgan, Algiers, I. iii. 40. He led his Enemies a tiresome Dance, often drawing them into Ambuscades.
Hence Tiresomely adv.
1847. C. Brontë, J. Eyre, xxxiv. A tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him.
1902. Times, 14 March, 7/5. Mr. Seddon [is] now regarded … as tiresomely insistent upon Imperial views.
