ordeal

英 [ɔː'diːəl] 美[ɔr'dil]

Back in the good old days—say, two years ago, when the last of my children suffered the ordeal (折磨)—a high-school student applying to college could procrastinate all the way to New Year's Day of their senior year, assuming they could withstand the parental pestering (烦扰).

Photography was once an expensive, laborious ordeal reserved for life's greatest milestones.