difficult
not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure
How often you will meet it
Rank 1,026 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 17,878 times across 139,755 chapters — 0.008% of every word in the library.
What it means
adjective
- not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure also: hard a difficult tasknesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access
- hard to control also: unmanageable a difficult childan unmanageable situation
difficult in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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These last were very difficult questions to answer.
The Water-Babies · Charles Kingsley · Chapter 1
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To find one was likely to be difficult.
Other People's Money · Emile Gaboriau · Chapter 1
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It appeared difficult to sing, however--he harked back to whistling.
The Courage of the Commonplace · Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews · Chapter 1
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Hardly could there have been put by anyone a more difficult question.
Christian's Mistake · Dinah Maria Mulock Craik · Chapter 1
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Here in New-York, it would be difficult to upset such evidence, but elsewhere the result might be different.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 08, May 21, 1870 · Various · Chapter 1