punishing

1. 1.

   resulting in punishment

   “the king imposed a punishing tax”
2. 2.

   characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort

   “worked their arduous way up the mining valley”

   “a grueling campaign”

   “hard labor”

   “heavy work”

   “heavy going”

   “spent many laborious hours on the project”

   “set a punishing pace”

   Synonymsarduousbackbreakinggruelinggruellinghardheavylaboriousoperosetoilsome

   Similareffortful

Questions about punishing

What does punishing mean?

punishing means "resulting in punishment". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in punishing?

punishing has 3 syllables: pun-i-shing. The stress falls on "pun". In IPA it is /ˈpʌnɪʃɪŋ/.

What is another word for punishing?

Close synonyms include arduous, backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, hard. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is punishing a common word?

punishing is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.