adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1. 1
   Hard to work with; stubborn. obsolete
2. 2
   Difficult. obsolete

   "[…] forasmuch as he was to judge of an internall beauty, of a difficile knowledge, and abstruse discovery."

Synonyms

All synonyms

abstrusearduousbrutalcomplexcriticaldelicate

Example

More examples

"She contracted a bacterial infection called Clostridium difficile which turned into sepsis."

Etymology

From late Old French difficile, from Latin difficilis, from dis- + facilis (“easy”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.