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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

difficulty.

The state of being difficult, or hard to do.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈdɪfɪkəlti/
  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 obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal.

    countable · uncountable
    We faced a difficulty in trying to book a flight so late.
  3. Physical danger from the environment, especially with risk of drowning

    countable · in-plural · sometimes · uncountable
  4. An objection.

    countable · uncountable
  5. That which cannot be easily understood or believed.

    countable · uncountable
  6. An awkward situation or quarrel.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.