The term rigorous is an adjective term of a qualifying type that serves to characterize or designate those things, people or situations that are extremely precise and exact about something. Normally, when applied as an adjective to a person, the notion of rigorous can have positive as well as negative tendencies since it may mean that it is a highly committed and professional person in what it does as well as very rigid and structured.
The word rigorous comes from the idea of rigor. Rigor is the phenomenon by which something is extremely accurate and precise about something. To be rigorous about something is to act meticulously, taking care of all the details and all the elements that perhaps anyone else could overlook. In any job, for example, being rigorous or rigorous can greatly help to obtain better results since nothing is left to chance and everything is under control. However, that can also cause work to take much longer due to that excessive need to control each and every detail.
The concept of rigorous or rigorous can also be applied to phenomena or actions, for example when an institution has a discipline or a rigorous regulation that is extremely firm and rigid and that, at the same time, leaves nothing to chance. This has to do with an interest in keeping the smallest details under control and limiting as much as possible the areas of freedom or spontaneity or of things that may not be easily foreseen. This example is typical of institutions such as the military or the police forces that generate this type of dynamic to organize their members and then always deal with these elements constantly.
