To avoid the tedium of dining tête-à-tête, to give their servants a rest, because there was no reason to refuse, because they were "owed" a dinner.
Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey.
Oddly, it seems that the way to get 'healthily bored' is to embrace tedium.
'(It) appeals to anyone who has queued for hours outside a crowded restaurant: it eliminates the tedium and physical strain of standing in line,' it added.
Once driverless cars spread beyond urban centres, the tedium of commutes will go.
Instead of performing varied activities that engage different neural systems (sport, knitting, painting, cooking, etc) to relieve our tedium, we fall back on the same screen-tapping schema for much of our day.
He never grumbled or resented the toil and tedium.
Anna Freud (1895 - 1982) Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste.
