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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Difficult \Dif"fi*cult\, adjective [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}.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Difficult \Dif"fi*cult\, verb (used with an object) To render difficult; to impede; to perplex. [R.] --Sir W. Temple.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
difficult
adjective
1: not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure; "a difficult task"; "nesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access"; "difficult times"; "a difficult child"; "found himself in a difficult situation"; "why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?" [syn: {hard}] [ant: {easy}]
2: requiring much effort and trouble; "the mountain climb was long, steep, and difficult"
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
134 Moby Thesaurus words for "difficult": Herculean, abstruse, adverse, antagonistic, arduous, awkward, baffling, beyond one, bloody-minded, brutal, burdensome, cantankerous, complex, complicated, conflicting, contrary, counter, counteractive, crabbed, cramp, critical, cross-grained, dark, delicate, demanding, detrimental, difficile, effortful, enigmatical, exacting, fastidious, finical, finicking, finicky, finikin, formidable, froward, fuss-budgety, fussy, garbled, grim, hairy, hard, hard to please, hard to understand, hard-earned, hard-fought, harmful, hostile, ill-behaved, in opposition, inimical, intractable, intricate, irascible, jawbreaking, jumbled, knotted, knotty, labored, laborious, mean, miserable, naughty, nit-picking, no picnic, not easy, obfuscated, obscure, obscured, obstinate, obstructive, onerous, operose, opposed, opposing, opposite, ornery, overtechnical, particular, pawky, pernickety, perplexed, perplexing, persnickety, perverse, problem, problematic, problematical, profound, puzzling, queasy, recalcitrant, recondite, refractory, rigorous, rough, rugged, scabrous, scrambled, sensitive, set with thorns, severe, sinister, spiny, squeamish, steep, strenuous, stressful, stubborn, stuffy, sulky, sullen, thorny, ticklish, toilsome, tough, tricky, troubled, troublesome, troubling, troublous, trying, unaccommodating, uncompromising, unfavorable, unmanageable, untoward, unyielding, uphill, wayward, wicked, wretched, wrongheaded
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