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To fish out; to find out by skill or laborious investigation; to search out. "To expiscate principles." [R.] Nichol. Dr.Burton has with much ingenuity endeavord to expiscate the truth which may be involved in them. W. L. Alexander.

Laborious drudgery; esp., the acting as a drudge for another at an English school.

To open the mouth wide in catching the breath, or in laborious respiration; to labor for breath; to respire convulsively; to pant violently. She gasps and struggles hard for life. Lloyd.

Difficult to accomplish; full of obstacles; laborious; fatiguing; arduous; as, a hard task; a disease hard to cure.

As if burdened with a great weight; slowly and laboriously; with difficulty; hence, in a slow, difficult, or suffering manner; sorrowfully. And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily. Ex. xiv. 25. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day Shak.

To form or shape with a sharp instrument; to cut; hence, to form laboriously; -- often with out; as, to hew out a sepulcher. Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn. Is. li. 1. Rather polishing old works than hewing out new. Pope.

To hike one's self; specif., to go with exertion or effort; to tramp; to march laboriously. [Dial. or Colloq.] "If you persist in heaving and hiking like this." Kipling.

and troublesome load; anything that impedes motion or action, or renders it difficult or laborious; clog; impediment; hindrance; check. Cowper.

Inquiry; quest; search. [R.] Spenser. The laborious and vexatious inquest that the soul must make after science. South.

Not involving labor; not laborious; easy.

Laborious. [Obs.] Wyatt. -- La"bor*ous*ly, adv. [Obs.] Sir T. Elyot.

Seneca can not be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. Shak. Specimens of New England humor laboriously light and lamentably mirthful. Hawthorne.

To elaborate, perfect, or compose, by night study or by laborious endeavor.

Composed by candlelight, or by night; of or pertaining to night studies; laborious or painstaking. Pope.

Laboriousness. [R.] Bp. Hall.

ion. Shak. This gained Agricola much opinion, who . . . had made such early progress into laborious . . . enterprises. Milton.

n which an epithet of a contrary signification is added to a word; e. g., cruel kindness; laborious idleness.

Requiring labor or toil; difficult; executed with laborious effort; as a painful service; a painful march.

To toil; to drudge; especially, to study laboriously and patiently. "Plodding schoolmen." Drayton.

Progressing in a slow, toilsome manner; characterized by laborious diligence; as, a plodding peddler; a plodding student; a man of plodding habits. --Plod"ding*ly, adv.