Difficulty
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The state of being difficult, or hard to do. countable, uncountable
"My mom is old and has a lot of difficulty (in) remembering all her grandchildren's names."
- 2 an effort that is inconvenient wordnet
- 3 An obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal. countable, uncountable
"We faced a difficulty in trying to book a flight so late."
- 4 the quality of being almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring a great effort to achieve a positive result wordnet
- 5 Physical danger from the environment, especially with risk of drowning countable, in-plural, sometimes, uncountable
"2012 August 2, "Children rescued after getting into difficulties in Donegal" BBC Online"
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- 6 An objection. countable, uncountable
- 7 That which cannot be easily understood or believed. countable, uncountable
- 8 An awkward situation or quarrel. countable, uncountable
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Sometimes he has difficulty being articulate about his views."
Etymology
From Middle English difficulte, from Middle French and Anglo-Norman difficulte and their etymon Latin difficultas, from difficul, older form of difficilis (“hard to do, difficult”), from dis- + facilis (“easy”); see difficile and difficult. Equivalent to dis- + facile + -ty. Also analysable as difficult + -y, though the adjective is historically a backformation from the noun.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.