difficulty
noun
Examples of difficulty in a Sentence
Koh Ewe, TIME, 2 Apr. 2024
But commercializing nuclear fusion still remains a long way off as scientists work to solve fiendish engineering and scientific difficulties.
—Laura Paddison, CNN, 1 Apr. 2024
Scott said that, while the city knows cleanup remains at some properties, officials want to be sensitive to the difficulties owners may have, such as with getting money from their insurance companies.
—Josh Snyder, arkansasonline.com, 31 Mar. 2024
Several, however, cited the deadly terrorist bombings in Beirut in 1983 and during the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan in 2021 as examples of the immense difficulty protecting U.S. service members during extended stays in vulnerable conditions.
—Dan Lamothe, Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2024
Financial difficulties can be difficult to navigate for the most stable family.
—Emily Edlynn, Parents, 29 Mar. 2024
This difficulty is not going away, and at first glance, there doesn’t seem to be an elegant solution at hand.
—Amy Lafko, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
But his quiet demeanor cracked with a recent series of Instagrams that smartly addressed issues surrounding difficulties that artists face in earning a genuine living from their music.
—A.d. Amorosi, Variety, 21 Mar. 2024
There was this exhilaration adapting these books for the screen, and terror at the difficulties involved.
—Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY, 20 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'difficulty.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Middle English difficulte, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French difficulté, borrowed from Latin difficultāt-, difficultās, from difficilis "hard to do, troublesome, intractable" (from dif-, probably assimilated form of dis- dis- + facilis "easy, accommodating") + -tāt-, -tās -ty — more at facile
Note: Latin difficultās presumably goes back to *dis-fakli-tāts and follows the same path as the base word, from *faklitāts to attested facultās (see faculty), with regular vowel weakening in a non-initial syllable. The word difficilis is derivationally peculiar, as the prefix dis- is regularly applied only to verbs and is not primarily privative—the expected negative counterpart to facilis should have been *infacilis. It has been hypothesized that dis- in this case is a permutation of *dus-, corresponding to Greek dys- "bad, ill" (see dys-; *dus- is otherwise unattested in Latin), or that difficilis is modeled on dissimilis "unlike" (see dissimilar; the adjective similis "like" takes a range of ordinarily verbal prefixes, perhaps following Greek equivalents). Neither solution is entirely satisfactory.
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Phrases Containing difficulty
Dictionary Entries Near difficulty
Cite this Entry
“Difficulty.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/difficulty. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.
Copy Citation
Kids Definition
difficulty
noun
More from Merriam-Webster on difficulty
Nglish: Translation of difficulty for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of difficulty for Arabic Speakers
Share