Difficulter

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A nonstandard comparative form meaning more challenging to do, understand, or manage than something else
2. An informal alternative to more demanding, describing something requiring greater effort or skill than a comparison item
3. Used to say that one task, problem, or situation requires more effort or ability to handle than another

Etymology: "Difficulter" is the comparative of "difficult", and it is the form that gives the most trouble, because English usually prefers "more difficult" for longer adjectives. The base word reaches English from Latin "difficilis", meaning "hard to do", built from "dis-" and "facilis" ("easy"). Its Latin ancestor "difficultas" passed through Old French "difficulté" to give modern "difficulty", and English "difficult" arrived around 1400 as a back-formation from that noun. Before "difficult" took over, English had its own word for the same idea. "Earveþ" was a native term descended from Old English "earfoþe", which meant "laborious, full of hardship" and was related to the German "Arbeit", meaning "work". The Latin-derived word displaced it, so the English that describes hard tasks today rests on a borrowed root rather than the older native one. The comparative "difficulter" is the regular "-er" form of the same adjective, while "difficult" and "difficulty" come from the Latin stem. The verb "difficult" ("to make difficult") developed later from the adjective, partly through Middle French "difficulter" and Latin "difficultō".