Difficult

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Difficult \Dif"fi*cult\, v. t.
     To render difficult; to impede; to perplex. [R.] --Sir W.
     Temple.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:



  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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     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.
           [1913 Webster]
  
                 There is not the strength or courage left me to
                 venture into the wide, strange, and difficult
                 world, alone.                      --Hawthorne.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     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}.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

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

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  134 Moby Thesaurus words for "difficult":
     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