Difficult

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈdɪfɪkəlt/

Definitions

1. Hard to do, understand, or deal with; requiring much effort, skill, or ability to accomplish
2. Challenging to comprehend, achieve, or manage
3. demanding significant effort, skill, or capability to overcome

Etymology: The Old English word that "difficult" displaced is a surprise: "earfoþe" meant "difficult, laborious, full of hardship," and it is cognate with German "Arbeit," meaning "work." English once described hard labour with a word that German still uses for ordinary employment, and that older word survived in Middle English as "earveþ" until a Latin-derived term pushed it aside. The modern word came into English in the Middle Ages through Old French "difficulté" (the source of the noun "difficulty"), itself from Latin "difficultas." That Latin noun was built on "difficul," an older form of "difficilis," meaning "hard to do." Behind it sits a simple pairing of "dis-" with "facilis," "easy," so the word is literally a negation of ease. The adjective was formed in Middle English around 1400 as a back-formation from the noun "difficulte," so the noun came first and the adjective was derived from it. The verb "to difficult," meaning to make something hard, developed later from the adjective, partly through Middle French "difficulter" and Latin "difficultō."

Synonyms: challenging, hard, tough, arduous, demanding

Antonyms: easy, simple, effortless