Movatterモバイル変換

[0]ホーム
URL:

Jump to content
WiktionaryThe Free Dictionary
Search

difficult

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

FromMiddle Englishdifficult (ca. 1400), aback-formation fromdifficulte (whence moderndifficulty), fromOld Frenchdifficulté, fromLatindifficultas, fromdifficul, older form ofdifficilis(“hard to do, difficult”), fromdis- +facilis(“easy”); seedifficile. Replaced nativeMiddle Englishearveþ(“difficult, hard”), fromOld Englishearfoþe(“difficult, laborious, full of hardship”), cognate toGermanArbeit(“work”).

The verb is from the adjective, partly afterMiddle Frenchdifficulter and its etymonLatindifficultō. Comparedifficilitate,difficultate, andItaliandifficoltare.[1]

Pronunciation

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

difficult (comparativemoredifficult,superlativemostdifficult)

  1. Hard, noteasy, requiring mucheffort.
    However, thedifficult weather conditions will ensure Yunnan has plenty of freshwater.
    • 1850,Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 17, inThe Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.:Ticknor, Reed, and Fields,→OCLC:
      There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange,difficult world, alone.
    • 2008, Daniel Goleman,Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama,→ISBN, page199:
      In adults, the same kind of anger has been studied in people trying to solve a verydifficult math problem. Though the tough math problem is very frustrating, there is an active attempt to solve the problem and meet the goal.
    • 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, inThe Economist, volume408, number8847:
      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 ondifficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it.
  2. (often of a person, or a horse, etc)Hard tomanage,uncooperative,troublesome.
    Stop beingdifficult and eat your broccoli—you know it's good for you.
  3. (obsolete) Unable or unwilling.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding,The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
      “I hope, madam,” said Jones, “my charming Lady Bellaston will be asdifficult to believe anything against one who is so sensible of the many obligations she hath conferred upon him.”

Usage notes

[edit]

Difficult implies that considerable mental effort or physical skill is required, or that obstacles are to be overcome which call for sagacity and skill in the doer; as, adifficult task. Thus, “hard” is not always synonymous with difficult. Examples includeadifficult operation in surgery andadifficult passage by an author (that is, a passage which is hard to understand).

Synonyms

[edit]

Derived terms

[edit]

Translations

[edit]
hard, not easy
hard to manage (said of a person, horse, etc.)

Verb

[edit]

difficult (third-person singular simple presentdifficults,present participledifficulting,simple past and past participledifficulted)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To make difficult; toimpede; toperplex.
    • August 9 1678,William Temple,letter to Joseph Williamson
      their Excellencies having desisted from their pretensions , which haddifficulted the peace

Translations

[edit]
make difficult; impede

References

[edit]
  1. ^“difficult,v.”, inOED OnlinePaid subscription required⁠, Oxford:Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Further reading

[edit]

Middle English

[edit]

Alternative forms

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

Back-formation fromdifficulte(“difficulty”).

Pronunciation

[edit]
  • IPA(key): /diˈfikult/,/diˈfikəl(t)/

Adjective

[edit]

difficult

  1. (rare, Late Middle English)difficult,challenging

Descendants

[edit]

References

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=difficult&oldid=86620950"
Categories:
Hidden categories:
[8]ページ先頭
©2009-2025 Movatter.jp