different between difficult vs unfriendly

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)

1. 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.
2. (often of a person, or a horse, etc) Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.

3. (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)

1. (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

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.

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?f??n(d)li/

Etymology 1

From Middle English unfrendly, unfrendli, unfrendely, from Old English *unfr?ondl?? (suggested by derivative unfr?ondl??e (“in an unfriendly manner; unfriendly”, adverb)), equivalent to un- +? friendly. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uunfrüntelk, uunfjuntelk (“unfriendly”), West Frisian ûnfreonlik (“unfriendly”), Dutch onvriendelijk (“unfriendly”), German Low German unfrünnelk (“unfriendly”), German unfreundlich (“unfriendly”), Faroese ófryntligur (“unfriendly”), Icelandic ófrýnilegur (“ugly; disturbing”).

Adjective

unfriendly (comparative unfriendlier or more unfriendly, superlative unfriendliest or most unfriendly)

1. Not friendly; hostile; mean.
2. Unfavourable.

Antonyms

• friendly

Derived terms

• user-unfriendly

Related terms

• unfriend

Translations

Noun

unfriendly (plural unfriendlies)

1. An enemy.
   • 2005, Ted Dekker, Thunder of Heaven (page 217)

     Sweep the valley compound and eliminate any unfriendlies you encounter.

   • 2008, Dennis Wengert, A Very Healthy Insanity (page 44)

     You see, the mission of almost every teenage girl on the loose is to first identify the targets, just like a war. These include the primary objective (the boy), the enemy (other girls), the friendlies (sympathetic girl friends and the boy's family), and unfriendlies (other boys).

Etymology 2

From Middle English unfrendli, from Old English unfr?ondl??e (“in an unfriendly manner”), equivalent to unfriend +? -ly.

Adverb

unfriendly (comparative unfriendlier or more unfriendly, superlative unfriendliest or most unfriendly)

1. in an unkind or unfriendly manner; not as a friend