different between difficult vs baffling
difficult
English
Etymology
From Middle English difficult (ca. 1400), a back-formation from difficultee (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”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /?d?f?k?lt/
Adjective
difficult (comparative difficulter or more difficult, superlative difficultest or most difficult)
- Hard, not easy, requiring much effort.
- However, the difficult weather conditions will ensure Yunnan has plenty of freshwater.
- There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone.
- (often of a person, or a horse, etc) Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
- (obsolete) Unable or unwilling.
Usage notes
Difficult implies that considerable mental effort or physical skill is required, or that obstacles are to be overcome which call for sagacity and skill in the doer; as, a difficult task. Thus, "hard" is not always synonymous with difficult. Examples include a difficult operation in surgery and a difficult passage by an author (that is, a passage which is hard to understand).
Synonyms
- burdensome, cumbersome, hard
- see also Thesaurus:difficult
Derived terms
- difficultly
Translations
Verb
difficult (third-person singular simple present difficults, present participle difficulting, simple past and past participle difficulted)
- (obsolete, transitive) To make difficult; 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
- August 9 1678, William Temple, letter to Joseph Williamson
Further reading
- difficult in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- difficult in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
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baffling
English
Verb
baffling
- present participle of baffle
Adjective
baffling (comparative more baffling, superlative most baffling)
- Puzzling, perplexing, bewildering.
- frustrating
Derived terms
- baffling wind
Translations
Noun
baffling (plural bafflings)
- An act of foiling or thwarting.
- 1831, The Quarterly Review (London)
- […] the contrast of the one determined and still triumphant will of the man, with the transient and vain bafflings of winds or waves, of gods, or monsters […]
- 1831, The Quarterly Review (London)
baffling From the web:
- what baffling means
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