Difficult \Dif"fi*cult\, a. [From Difficulty.]
1. Hard to do or to make; beset with difficulty; attended
with labor, trouble, or pains; not easy; arduous.
Note: Difficult implies the notion that considerable mental
effort or skill is required, or that obstacles are to
be overcome which call for sagacity and skill in the
agent; as, a difficult task; hard work is not always
difficult work; a difficult operation in surgery; a
difficult passage in an author.
There is not the strength or courage left me to
venture into the wide, strange, and difficult
world, alone. --Hawthorne.
2. Hard to manage or to please; not easily wrought upon;
austere; stubborn; as, a difficult person.
Syn: Arduous; painful; crabbed; perplexed; laborious;
unaccommodating; troublesome. See Arduous.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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