difficult
pronunciation
How to pronounce difficult in British English:
UK [ˈdɪfɪkəlt]
How to pronounce difficult in American English:
US [ˈdɪfɪkəlt]
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- Adjective:
- not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure
- requiring much effort and trouble
Word Origin
- difficult
- difficult: [14] Difficult means literally ‘not easy’. It is a back-formation from difficulty [14], which was borrowed from Latin difficultās. This was a derivative of the adjective difficilis (source of French difficile), which was a compound formed from the prefix dis- ‘not’ and facilis ‘easy’ (whence English facile [15]).=> facile
- difficult (adj.)
- c. 1400, apparently a back-formation from difficulty. French has difficile, Latin difficilis. Of persons, "hard to please," from 1580s.
Example
- 1. Raising fresh capital is also increasingly difficult .
- 2. Journalism there is difficult and dangerous .
- 3. Emotions are extremely difficult to control .
- 4. Attaching hard numbers to any of this is difficult .
- 5. Her marriage to joe jackson in 1949 , was difficult .