Difficulty1. (n.) The state of being difficult, or hard to do; hardness; arduousness; -- opposed to easiness or facility; as, the difficulty of a task or enterprise; a work of difficulty.
2. (n.) Something difficult; a thing hard to do or to understand; that which occasions labor or perplexity, and requires skill and perseverance to overcome, solve, or achieve; a hard enterprise; an obstacle; an impediment; as, the difficulties of a science; difficulties in theology.
3. (n.) A controversy; a falling out; a disagreement; an objection; a cavil.
4. (n.) Embarrassment of affairs, especially financial affairs; -- usually in the plural; as, to be in difficulties.
Thesaurus Entries
Gordian knot, abstruseness, adverse circumstances, adversity, affliction, aggravation, agreement to disagree, altercation, annoyance, arduousness, asperity, bad news, bedevilment, beef, bickering, blight, block, blockade, bore, bother, botheration, bothersomeness, bottleneck, bummer, burden, burthen, care, cargo, catch, challenge, charge, complexity, complication, controversy, cordon, crabbedness, crampedness, crashing bore, cross, cross-purposes, cumbrance, curse, curtain, deadweight, deepness, demurral, demurrer, determent, deterrent, devilment, difference, difference of opinion, difficulties, dilemma, disadvantage, disagreement, disparity, dispute, distress, dividedness, division, dogging, downer, drag, drawback, embarrassment, emergency, encumbrance, esoterica, exasperation, exigency, falling-out, fight, fix, formidableness, freight, hamper, handicap, hang-up, harassment, hard knocks, hard life, hard lot, hardcase, hardness, hardship, harrying, hassle, hazard, headache, heavy sledding, hindrance, hitch, hot water, hounding, hurdle, impediment, impedimenta, imposition, inconvenience, intricacy, irritation, jam, joker, knottiness, laboriousness, load, lumber, mess, misunderstanding, molestation, nuisance, objection, obstacle, obstruction, obstructive, odds, one small difficulty, onus, pack, painfulness, pass, penalty, persecution, pest, pickle, pinch, pitfall, plight, polarization, predicament, pressure, problem, profoundness, profundity, protest, quandary, question, reconditeness, remonstrance, remonstration, rigor, rub, scrape, sea of troubles, snag, squabble, strain, strait, straits, stress, stress of life, stumbling block, stumbling stone, trial, tribulation, trouble, troubles, vale of tears, variance, vexation, vexatiousness, vicissitude, vigor, weight, white elephant, worriment, worry