difficult
[adjective]
Synonyms:
- hard, arduous, demanding, formidable, laborious, onerous, strenuous, uphill
- problematical, abstruse, baffling, complex, complicated, intricate, involved, knotty, obscure
- hard to please, demanding, fastidious, fussy, perverse, refractory, unaccommodating

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Antonyms: simple
Related Idioms: easier said than done, no picnic, tough sledding
Related Words: problem, problematic

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English Thesaurus: difficult, hard, tough, tricky, awkward, ...

[TahlilGaran] English Synonym Dictionary ▲

dif‧fi‧cult S1 W1 /ˈdɪfɪkəlt/ adjective
[Date: 1300-1400; Origin: difficulty]

1. hard to do, understand, or deal with Antonym : easy:
a difficult question
an immensely difficult task
Was the exam very difficult?
It’s difficult to see how more savings can be made.
difficult (for somebody) to understand/find/obtain etc
That’s rather difficult for me to explain.
He’s finding it difficult to get a job.

2. involving a lot of problems and causing a lot of trouble or worry:
a difficult situation
Things are a bit difficult at home at the moment.
There could be difficult times ahead.
make life/things difficult for somebody (=cause problems for someone)
She’s doing everything she can to make life difficult for him.

3. someone who is difficult never seems pleased or satisfied Synonym : awkward:
Don’t be so difficult!
a difficult customer

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

difficult
adj.
VERBS be, look, prove, seem, sound | become, get It is getting more and more difficult to find a job.
make sth The fog made driving very difficult.
find sth
ADV. exceedingly, extraordinarily, extremely, incredibly, particularly, really, very | doubly Her disability made taking care of the home and raising a family doubly difficult.
increasingly | a bit, quite, rather | notoriously Birth rates are notoriously difficult to predict.

[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary ▲

difficult not easy to do, understand, or deal with:
a difficult question
The homework was really difficult.
It is difficult to see how peace can be achieved in the region.
hard difficult. Hard is less formal than difficult and is very common in spoken English:
The test was really hard.
a hard decision
It was hard to forgive him.
tough very difficult, because you have to use a lot of effort, or because it affects you emotionally:
a tough race
Doctors have to make tough decisions about who to treat first.
The team faces some tough competition.
Life is tough sometimes.
tricky difficult because it is complicated and full of problems:
She had helped him out of a tricky situation.
Merging the two companies was bound to be tricky.
awkward rather difficult to deal with – used especially when something could be embarrassing:
You’ve put me in a very awkward position.
It was getting dark and foggy, which made the rescue even more awkward.
challenging difficult in an interesting or enjoyable way:
I wanted a job that was more challenging.
a challenging piece of music
demanding difficult and tiring, because it takes a lot of effort:
Being a nurse in a busy hospital is a demanding job.
it can be very demanding bringing up young children.
daunting if something seems daunting, you think that it will be difficult and you do not feel confident about being able to do it:
a daunting challenge
The task seemed a little daunting at first.
delicate needing to be dealt with carefully or sensitively, especially in order to avoid offending people or causing problems:
This is a very delicate subject, and it can be difficult to talk about it with your parents.
He thanked me for the way in which this delicate matter had been handled.
tough question/decision/job/game/race

[TahlilGaran] English Thesaurus ▲