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difficulty

dif·fi·culty

UK/ˈdɪfɪkəlti/ US/ˈdɪfɪˌkʌlti/ fairly common

noun

1.

an effort that is inconvenient

  • “I went to a lot of trouble”
  • “he won without any trouble”
  • “had difficulty walking”
  • “finished the test only with great difficulty”
Synonyms
2.

a factor causing trouble in achieving a positive result or tending to produce a negative result

  • “serious difficulties were encountered in obtaining a pure reagent”
3.

a condition or state of affairs almost beyond one''s ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome

  • “grappling with financial difficulties”
4.

the quality of being difficult

  • “they agreed about the difficulty of the climb”
Synonyms
Antonyms

Origin

From Middle English difficulte, from Middle French and Anglo-Norman difficulte and their etymon Latin difficultas, from difficul, older form of difficilis (“hard to do, difficult”), from dis- + facilis (“easy”); see difficile and difficult. Equivalent to dis- + facile + -ty. Also analysable as difficult + -y, though the adjective is historically a backformation from the noun.

Phrases

  • difficulty level
  • in difficulty
  • learning difficulty
  • personality difficulty
  • technical difficulty
  • with difficulty
  • with great difficulty

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.