Adjacent Words

Difficult definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DIFFICULT, a. [L., easy to be made or done; to make or do.]
1. Hard to be made, done or performed; not easy; attended with labor and pains; as, our task is difficult. It is difficult to persuade men to abandon vice. It is difficult to ascend a steep hill, or travel a bad road.
2. Hard to be pleased; not easily wrought upon; not readily yielding; not compliant; unaccommodating; rigid; austere; not easily managed or persuaded; as a difficult man; a person of a difficult temper.
3. Hard to be ascended as a hill, traveled as a road, or crossed as a river, etc. We say, a difficult ascent; a difficult road; a difficult river to cross; etc.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure; "a difficult task"; "nesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access"; "difficult times"; "why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?" [syn: difficult, hard] [ant: easy]
2: hard to control; "a difficult child", "an unmanageable situation" [syn: unmanageable, difficult] [ant: manageable]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English, back-formation from difficulty Date: 14th century 1. hard to do, make, or carry out ; arduous <a difficult climb> 2. a. hard to deal with, manage, or overcome <a difficult child> b. hard to understand ; puzzling <difficult reading> Synonyms: see hard • difficultly adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 a needing much effort or skill. b troublesome, perplexing. 2 (of a person): a not easy to please or satisfy. b uncooperative, troublesome. 3 characterized by hardships or problems (a difficult period in his life). Derivatives: difficultly adv. difficultness n. Etymology: ME, back-form. f. DIFFICULTY

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Difficult Dif"fi*cult, v. t. To render difficult; to impede; to perplex. [R.] --Sir W. Temple.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Difficult Dif"fi*cult, a. [From Difficulty.] 1. Hard to do or to make; beset with difficulty; attended with labor, trouble, or pains; not easy; arduous. Note: Difficult implies the notion that considerable mental effort or skill is required, or that obstacles are to be overcome which call for sagacity and skill in the agent; as, a difficult task; hard work is not always difficult work; a difficult operation in surgery; a difficult passage in an author. There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, and difficult world, alone. --Hawthorne. 2. Hard to manage or to please; not easily wrought upon; austere; stubborn; as, a difficult person. Syn: Arduous; painful; crabbed; perplexed; laborious; unaccommodating; troublesome. See Arduous.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English. 1. Something that is difficult is not easy to do, understand, or deal with. The lack of childcare provisions made it difficult for single mothers to get jobs... It was a very difficult decision to make... We're living in difficult times... = hard ? easy ADJ: oft it v-link ADJ to-inf, it v-link ADJ -ing 2. Someone who is difficult behaves in an unreasonable and unhelpful way. I had a feeling you were going to be difficult about this. = awkward ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Hard, arduous, Herculean, uphill, beset with difficulty. 2. Obscure, hard to be understood, intricate, perplexing. 3. Austere, rigid, unyielding, unaccommodating, uncompliant, hard to manage or persuade. 4. Fastidious, dainty, squeamish, hard to please.

Moby Thesaurus

Herculean, abstruse, adverse, antagonistic, arduous, awkward, baffling, beyond one, bloody-minded, brutal, burdensome, cantankerous, complex, complicated, conflicting, contrary, counter, counteractive, crabbed, cramp, critical, cross-grained, dark, delicate, demanding, detrimental, difficile, effortful, enigmatical, exacting, fastidious, finical, finicking, finicky, finikin, formidable, froward, fuss-budgety, fussy, garbled, grim, hairy, hard, hard to please, hard to understand, hard-earned, hard-fought, harmful, hostile, ill-behaved, in opposition, inimical, intractable, intricate, irascible, jawbreaking, jumbled, knotted, knotty, labored, laborious, mean, miserable, naughty, nit-picking, no picnic, not easy, obfuscated, obscure, obscured, obstinate, obstructive, onerous, operose, opposed, opposing, opposite, ornery, overtechnical, particular, pawky, pernickety, perplexed, perplexing, persnickety, perverse, problem, problematic, problematical, profound, puzzling, queasy, recalcitrant, recondite, refractory, rigorous, rough, rugged, scabrous, scrambled, sensitive, set with thorns, severe, sinister, spiny, squeamish, steep, strenuous, stressful, stubborn, stuffy, sulky, sullen, thorny, ticklish, toilsome, tough, tricky, troubled, troublesome, troubling, troublous, trying, unaccommodating, uncompromising, unfavorable, unmanageable, untoward, unyielding, uphill, wayward, wicked, wretched, wrongheaded