Definitions for: Difficult


[adj] 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"; "a difficult child"; "found himself in a difficult situation"; "why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?"
[adj] requiring much effort and trouble; "the mountain climb was long, steep, and difficult"



Webster (1913) Definition: 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.


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

Synonyms: ambitious, arduous, awkward, baffling, catchy, challenging, delicate, embarrassing, fractious, hard, hard-fought, Herculean, knotty, nasty, problematic, problematical, rocky, rough, rugged, serious, sticky, stubborn, tall(a), thorny, ticklish, tight, tough, tricky, troublesome, trying, unenviable, vexed

Antonyms: easy

See Also: demanding, effortful

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