Difficult
- Hard, not easy, requiring much effort.
- (often of a person, or a horse, etc) Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
- (obsolete) Unable or unwilling.
Usage notes
Difficult implies that considerable mental effort or physical skill is required, or that obstacles are to be overcome which call for sagacity and skill in the doer; as, a difficult task. Thus, "hard" is not always synonymous with difficult: Other examples include adifficultoperation in surgery and adifficultpassage by an author (that is, a passage which is hard to understand).