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Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)
17

Opinion of the Court

2492 (“inappropriate,” “unsuited,” or “exceeding or violating propriety or fitness”); American Heritage 1398 (“excessive”). The Government agrees, noting that “ ‘undue hardship means something greater than hardship.’ ” Brief for United States 30; see id., at 39 (arguing that “accommodations should be assessed while ‘keep[ing] in mind both words in the key phrase of the actual statutory text: “undue” and “hardship” ’ ” (quoting Adeyeye v. Heartland Sweeteners, LLC, 721 F. 3d 444, 456 (CA7 2013)).

When “undue hardship” is understood in this way, it means something very different from a burden that is merely more than de minimis, i.e., something that is “very small or trifling.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 388. So considering ordinary meaning while taking Hardison as a given, we are pointed toward something closer to Hardison’s references to “substantial additional costs” or “substantial expenditures.” 432 U. S., at 83, n. 14.

Similarly, while we do not rely on the pre-1972 EEOC decisions described above to define the term, we do observe that these decisions often found that accommodations that entailed substantial costs were required. See supra, at 5, nn. 3–4. Nothing in this history plausibly suggests that “undue hardship” in Title VII should be read to mean anything less than its meaning in ordinary use. Cf. George v. McDonough, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 5) (a “robust regulatory backdrop” can “fil[l] in the details” of a statutory scheme’s use of a specific term).

In short, no factor discussed by the parties—the ordinary meaning of “undue hardship,” the EEOC guidelines that Hardison concluded that the 1972 amendment “ ‘ratified,’ ” 432 U. S., at 76, n. 11 (internal quotation marks omitted), the use of that term by the EEOC prior to those amendments, and the common use of that term in other statutes—supports reducing Hardison to its “more than a de minimis cost” line. See Brief for United States 39 (arguing that “the Court could emphasize that Hardison’s language does not