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difficult

/ˈdɪfɪkəlt/adjective3 syllables

Difficult means: not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure.

Synonyms for difficult43

adjective, as in not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure

hard, ambitious, challenging, arduous, awkward, embarrassing, sticky, unenviable, baffling, elusive, knotty, problematic, problematical, tough
and 11 more, catchy, tricky, delicate, ticklish, touchy, fractious, hard-fought, herculean, nasty, tight, rocky

adjective, as in hard to control

unmanageable, indocile, uncontrollable, ungovernable, unruly, incorrigible, uncheckable, defiant, noncompliant, disobedient, intractable

also used for difficult

burdensome, cumbersome, effortful, rough, thistly, uneath, unsimple

Includes material from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Opposites of difficult

easy

What does difficult mean?2

adjective

1

not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure“a difficult task”

2

hard to control“a difficult child”

Definitions from the Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Difficult in a sentence

  • As is often said, it is difficult to adjust yourself to a new environment.CK
  • Changing the system is difficult, not to mention the interpersonal relationships.unknown
  • This is a difficult problem, and it is not easy for anyone to decide.unknown
  • It is difficult, if not impossible, to solve this problem.CM
  • This problem seems to be easy on the surface, but it's really difficult.CK
  • Once you start smoking, it is difficult to get rid of that bad habit.CM
  • It is difficult, if not impossible, for me to beat him at tennis.CM
  • In my opinion, it would be difficult to solve this problem.CK

Sentences from Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR, credited to their authors.