Difficult Meaning
/ˈdɪfɪkəlt/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
adjHard, not easy, requiring much effort.
adjHard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
Sentence Examples
It's quite difficult to master French in 2 or 3 years.
It's difficult to have great ideas.
The competition judges were given a very difficult task.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
The math problem was so ____ that even the teacher struggled to solve it.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It's quite ____ to master French in 2 or 3 years.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone."
— 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 17, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
"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."
— 2008, Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, →ISBN, page 199:
"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."
— 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
"“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.”"
— 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The math problem was so ____ that even the teacher struggled to solve it.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It's quite ____ to master French in 2 or 3 years.