Alright, let me tell you about tackling this crossword clue today: “burdensome”. I was sitting down with the paper, pretty standard Tuesday puzzle, nothing too crazy, or so I thought.
So I see “burdensome”. My first instinct, probably like a lot of folks, was HEAVY. Makes sense, right? Something burdensome is heavy, metaphorically or whatever. I counted the squares for the answer though… nope, needed more letters. HEAVY was too short.
Okay, plan B. What else feels like “burdensome”? My mind jumped to TAXING. Like a taxing job, it burdens you. Sounded pretty good. I checked the length. Hmm, maybe? But then I looked at the letters I already had filled in from the crossing words. I had an ‘O’ near the start and an ‘S’ at the end. TAXING didn’t fit with those crossing letters at all. So, that was out too.
This clue was starting to live up to its name, honestly. A bit annoying. I took a sip of coffee and just stared at the grid for a minute. What did I know for sure?
- It meant burdensome.
- It had, let’s see… seven letters.
- It started with ‘O’.
- It ended with ‘S’.
- It had an ‘N’ as the third letter and an ‘R’ as the fifth based on my other answers (which I felt pretty solid about).
So the pattern looked like O-N-something-R-something-something-S. O-N- _ -R- _ – _ -S.
Okay, “burdensome”, seven letters, O-N…R…S. My brain started churning through possibilities. What fits that pattern and means burdensome? Oppressive? No, wrong letters. And then it clicked. ONEROUS. O-N-E-R-O-U-S.
Let’s check that again. O-N-E-R-O-U-S. Seven letters? Yep. Starts with O, ends with S? Yep. Onerous means burdensome, involving effort and difficulty that is oppressively burdensome. Perfect fit. The crossing letters ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘U’ all slotted in nicely with the words going down.
Felt good to finally pencil that one in. It wasn’t a word I use every day, but definitely one I knew. Just took a bit of working through the crosses and thinking past the obvious synonyms. Sometimes you just gotta trust the grid and let the other words help you out. Another puzzle, another little victory.
