Etymology From Middle English difficult (ca. 1400), a back-formation from difficulte (whence modern difficulty), from Old French difficulté, from Latin difficultas, from difficul, older form of difficilis (“hard to do, difficult”), from dis- + facilis (“easy”); see difficile. Replaced native Middle English earveþ (“difficult, hard”), from Old English earfoþe (“difficult, laborious, full of hardship”), cognate to German Arbeit (“work”). The verb is from the adjective, partly after Middle French difficulter and its etymon Latin difficultō. Compare difficilitate, difficultate, and Italian difficoltare.
1
Hard, not easy, requiring much effort.
difficult of accomplishment
However, the difficult weather conditions will ensure Yunnan has plenty of freshwater.
3 more examples
There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone.1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 17, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
In adults, the same kind of anger has been studied in people trying to solve a very difficult math problem. Though the tough math problem is very frustrating, there is an active attempt to solve the problem and meet the goal.2008, Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, →ISBN, page 199:
Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.[…]But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it.2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
2
Often, Of a person Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
Or a horse; etc; or a horse; etc
Stop being difficult and eat your broccoli—you know it's good for you.
“I hope, madam,” said Jones, “my charming Lady Bellaston will be as difficult to believe anything against one who is so sensible of the many obligations she hath conferred upon him.”1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
Etymology From Middle English difficult (ca. 1400), a back-formation from difficulte (whence modern difficulty), from Old French difficulté, from Latin difficultas, from difficul, older form of difficilis (“hard to do, difficult”), from dis- + facilis (“easy”); see difficile. Replaced native Middle English earveþ (“difficult, hard”), from Old English earfoþe (“difficult, laborious, full of hardship”), cognate to German Arbeit (“work”). The verb is from the adjective, partly after Middle French difficulter and its etymon Latin difficultō. Compare difficilitate, difficultate, and Italian difficoltare.
1
Obsolete To make difficult, hinder; to impede; to perplex.
August 9 1678, William Temple, letter to Joseph Williamson their Excellencies having desisted from their pretensions , which had difficulted the peace