Difficult (?), a. [From Difficulty.] 1. Hard to do or to make; beset with difficulty; attended with labor, trouble, or pains; not easy; arduous.
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&hand_; 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.
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There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, and difficult world, alone. Hawthorne.
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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.
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