Difficult

How to spell difficult

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce difficult

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does difficult mean?

1. adjectiveNeeding much effort or skill to do, deal with, or understand.

Difficult in a sentence

• The exam was more difficult than anyone had expected.

• Negotiating a lower rent proved difficult in such a competitive market.

Where does difficult come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin difficilis, meaning 'hard to do', which was formed from dis-, a negative prefix here meaning 'not', and facilis, meaning 'easy' or 'doable'. That facilis in turn rests on the verb facere, 'to do or to make', the same root that gives English 'fact', 'factory', and 'facile'. The word was effectively back-formed in English in the late 1300s from the noun 'difficulty', which had arrived from Old French difficulte and directly from Latin difficultas. So 'difficult' literally describes something that is the opposite of easy to make happen, and the single 'f' in the prefix followed by the double 'f' of the root is the spot writers tend to second-guess. Remembering the buried verb 'fic' (do or make) helps fix that 'fic' in the middle of the spelling.

How the word is built

• dif- (variant of dis-: apart, not)
• fic (from facere: to do, to make)
• -ult (adjective ending)