Difficult
Contents
English
Adjective
Difficult (comparative more Difficult, superlative most Difficult)
- hard, not easy, requiring much effort
- hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome; eg. said of a person, a horse, etc.
- Stop being difficult and eat your broccoli - you know it's good for you.
Notes
Difficult implies the notion that considerable mental effort or physical skill is required, or that obstacles are to be overcome which call for sagacity and skill in the doer; as, a difficult task. Thus, "hard" is not always synonymous with difficult: Other examples include a difficult operation in surgery; a difficult passage by an author.
Adverbs for Difficult
relatively; tremendously; overwhelmingly; formidably; unbelievably; supremely; seriously; administratively; physically; obviously; naturally; peculiarly; particularly;strangely; curiously; conspicuously; alarmingly; patently; evidently; dishearteningly; impossibly; intricately; perplexingly; desperately.
Synonyms for Difficult
burdensome, cumbersome, hard, intricate, involved, arduous, obscure, perplexing, laborious, troublesome, unyielding, unmanageable, rigid, puzzling, enigmatical, obscure, trying, confused, complicated, complex, unaccommodating.
Antonyms for Difficult
easy, simple, yielding, complacent, light, lucid, tractable, calm, tranquil, free, unconcerned, smooth, plain, pleasant.
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
Etymology
From difficulty < Middle English difficultee < Old French difficulte < Latin difficultas < difficul, older form of difficilis (“hard to do, difficult”) < dis- + facilis (“easy”); see difficile.
Pronunciation
Translations
|
|
Statistics
External links
- Difficult in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- Difficult in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
