Synonyms for difficult

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1. Hard to achieve

   laborious, hard, arduous, strenuous, demanding, exacting, hard-won, stiff, heavy, painful, labored, trying, titanic, bothersome, troublesome, burdensome, backbreaking, not easy, wearisome, onerous, attended by obstacles, rigorous, Herculean, requiring much effort, Gargantuan, uphill, Sisyphean, challenging, taxing, formidable, ambitious, intricate, irksome, vexatious, tedious, immense, exhausting, grueling, stressful, unyielding, tricky, delicate, ticklish, beyond one's ability, tough*, heavy*, man-sized*, no picnic*, hairy*, sticky*; see also onerous, severe 1.

   Antonyms easy*, manageable, light.

2. Hard to understand

   intricate, involved, perplexing, abstruse, abstract, tricky, hard, obscure, complex, complicated, knotty, thorny, troublesome, obstinate, puzzling, mysterious, mystifying, subtle, confusing, bewildering, dark, confounding, esoteric, unclear, mystical, tangled, hard to explain, hard to solve, entangled, profound, vexing, baffling, enmeshed, rambling, loose, meandering, trackless, inexplicable, pathless, awkward, digressive, turgid, deep, stubborn, labyrinthine, hidden, formidable, enigmatic, occult, paradoxical, incomprehensible, unintelligible, inscrutable, inexplicable, unanswerable, not understandable, unsolvable, unfathomable, concealed, unaccountable, ambiguous, equivocal, metaphysical, inconceivable, recondite, overtechnical, unknown, steep*, tough*, over one's head*, beyond one's depth*, too deep*, beyond one's comprehension, not making sense, Greek to*, past comprehension; see also obscure 1, 3.

   Antonyms simple, clear*, easy.

3. Hard to deal with or manage

   unmanageable, perverse, unaccommodating, finicky; see careful, contrary 4, irritable, obstinate.

hard, in this comparison, is the simple and general word for whatever demands great physical or mental effort hard work, a hard problem; difficult applies especially to that which requires great skill, intelligence, tact, etc. rather than physical labor a difficult situation; a difficult book; arduous implies the need for diligent, protracted effort the arduous fight ahead of us; laborious suggests long, wearisome toil the laborious task of picking fruit