difficult
Adjective
- 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"
- hard to control; ,
- "a difficult child"
Adj
- Hard, not easy, requiring much effort.
- Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
- Unable or unwilling.
Verb
- To make difficult; to impede; to perplex.
Examples
- Stop being difficult and eat your broccoli—you know it's good for you.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English difficult (ca. 1400), a back-formation from difficulte (whence modern difficulty), from Old French difficulté, from Latin difficultas, from difficul, older form of difficilis (“hard to do, difficult”), from dis- + facilis (“easy”); see difficile. Replaced native Middle English earveþ (“difficult, hard”), from Old English earfoþe (“difficult, laborious, full of hardship”), cognate to German Arbeit (“work”).
The verb is from the adjective, partly after Middle French difficulter and its etymon Latin difficultō. Compare difficilitate, difficultate, and Italian difficoltare.
Synonyms
hard, unmanageable, arduous, burdensome, challenging, cumbersome, difficult, effortful, rocky, thistly, tough, uneath, unsimple
Antonyms
Scrabble Score: 18
difficult: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Worddifficult: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
difficult: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary