adj 1: resulting in punishment; "the king imposed a punishing tax"
2: characterized by toilsome 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" [syn: arduous, backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, hard, heavy, laborious, labourious, toilsome]