different between ponderous vs difficult

English

Etymology

Ultimately from Latin ponder?sus (“weighty”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p?n.d??.?s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?p?n.d?.?s/

Adjective

ponderous (comparative more ponderous, superlative most ponderous)

1. Heavy, massive, weighty.
   • 1879, Julian Hawthorne, Archibald Malmaison, ch. 5:

     [H]e saw, at the end of a shallow embrasure, a ponderous door of dark wood, braced with iron.

   • c. 1920, Edgar B. P. Darlington, The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings, ch. 4:

     The great elephant, when the cage was being placed, would, at a signal from its keeper, place its ponderous head against one side of the cage and push.

2. (figuratively, by extension) Serious, onerous, oppressive.
   • 1781, Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets, "Dryden":

     It was Dryden's opinion . . . that the drama required an alternation of comick and tragick scenes; and that it is necessary to mitigate, by alleviations of merriment, the pressure of ponderous events, and the fatigue of toilsome passions.

   • 1845, Charles Dickens, Pictures From Italy, ch. 11:

     In its court-yard—worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous gloom—is a massive staircase.

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, ch. 19:

     For the time, her own body was the source of all the life in the world, which tried to burst forth here—there—and was repressed now by Mr. Bax, now by Evelyn, now by the imposition of ponderous stupidity.

3. Clumsy, unwieldy, or slow, especially due to weight.
   • 1915, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Little Miss Grouch, ch. 10:

     Slowly, through an increasing glow that lighted land and water alike, the leviathan of the deep made her ponderous progress to the hill-encircled harbor.

   • 1919, Virginia Woolf, "Kew Gardens":

     Following his steps . . . came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout and ponderous, the other rosy cheeked and nimble.

4. Dull, boring, tedious; long-winded in expression.
   • 1863, Elizabeth Gaskell, "Cousin Phillis":

     Over supper the minister did unbend a little into one or two ponderous jokes.

   • 1918, Gene Stratton-Porter, A Daughter Of The Land, ch. 2:

     [A]s certainly as any one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with ponderous circumlocution.

5. (rare) Characterized by or associated with pondering.
   • c. 1660, Thomas Manton, "Sermon Upon John III" in Works of Thomas Manton (2002 edition), ?ISBN, p. 464:

     Ponderous thoughts take hold of the heart; musing maketh the fire to burn, and steady sight hath the greatest influence upon us.

   • 1804, The Literary Magazine and American Register, vol. 2, no. 7, p. 10:

     The acute and ponderous mind of Dr. Johnson was not always right in its decisions.

   • 1850, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, vol. 41, p. 242:

     They are the pleasantest of all companions, and perhaps the most affluent in correct opinions of men and things generally, although little addicted to ponderous consideration or deep research.

6. (obsolete) Dense.

Synonyms

• (heavy, massive): heavy, massive
• (serious, onerous): oppressive, serious

Derived terms

• ponderously
• ponderousness

Translations

Anagrams

• neuropods

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.