Problematic
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A problem or difficulty in a particular field of study.
"The seemingly intractable problematic of essentialism versus antiessentialism and primordialism versus circumstantialism endemic to identity analysis today."
- 1 Posing a problem; having or suffering from problem(s):; Difficult to overcome, solve, or decide.
"And the most problematic thing of all is that it is impossible for me even to know and tell you their names, unless one of them happens to be a playwright."
- 2 Posing a problem; having or suffering from problem(s):; Not settled, uncertain, of uncertain outcome; debatable, questionable, open to doubt.
"The strangeness of hiring undocumented Mexican women as domestics, many of whom were no older than fifteen, seemed strange to me. It was this strangeness that raised the topic of domestic service as a question and made problematic what had previously been taken for granted."
- 3 Posing a problem; having or suffering from problem(s):; Contributing (especially if subtly) to discrimination (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or ageism).
- 4 Only affirming the possibility that a predicate be actualised. dated
- 1 making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe wordnet
- 2 open to doubt or debate wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The separation of gold from sand is problematic."
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French problématique, from Late Latin problematicus, from Ancient Greek προβληματικός (problēmatikós), from πρόβλημα (próblēma, “outjutting, barrier, problem”), from προβάλλω (probállō, “I throw, place before”), from πρό (pró, “before”) + βάλλω (bállō, “I throw, place”). By surface analysis, problem + -atic.
Related phrases
More for "problematic"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.