Pronunciations (2)
-
/ˈdɪfɪkəlt/
-
ˈdɪfɪkəlt
Adjective
Hard, not easy, requiring much effort.
- Examples
-
This task is difficult.
difficult of accomplishment
However, the difficult weather conditions will ensure Yunnan has plenty of freshwater.
More examples (4)
If they're difficult, offer them more.
There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone.
In adults, the same kind of anger has been studied in people trying to solve a very difficult math problem. Though the tough math problem is very frustrating, there is an active attempt to solve the problem and meet the goal.
Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.[…]But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it.
Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
Usage- often
- of a person
- Examples
-
The customer was difficult.
Stop being difficult and eat your broccoli—you know it's good for you.
Unable or unwilling.
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
“I hope, madam,” said Jones, “my charming Lady Bellaston will be as difficult to believe anything against one who is so sensible of the many obligations she hath conferred upon him.”
Verb
To make difficult, hinder; to impede; to perplex.
Usage- Obsolete
- Transitive
- Examples
-
August 9 1678, William Temple, letter to Joseph Williamson their Excellencies having desisted from their pretensions , which had difficulted the peace
Adjective
not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- Examples
-
a difficult task
nesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access
More examples (2)
difficult times
why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?
hard to control
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
a difficult child
an unmanageable situation