different between stern vs difficult

English

Alternative forms

• sterne (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: stûrn, IPA^(key): /st?n/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: stûn, IPA^(key): /st??n/
• Rhymes: -??(?)n

Etymology 1

From Middle English stern, sterne, sturne, from Old English styrne (“stern, grave, strict, austere, hard, severe, cruel”), from Proto-Germanic *sturnijaz (“angry, astonished, shocked”), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“rigid, stiff”). Cognate with Scots stern (“bold, courageous, fierce, resolute”), Old High German storn?n (“to be astonished”), Dutch stuurs (“glum, austere”), Swedish stursk (“insolent”).

Adjective

stern (comparative sterner, superlative sternest)

1. Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
   • stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
2. Grim and forbidding in appearance.
   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion

     these barren rocks, your stern inheritance

Translations

Etymology 2

Most likely from Old Norse stjórn (“control, steering”), related to stýra (“to steer”), from Proto-Germanic *stiurijan?, whence also English steer. Also possibly from Old Frisian stiarne (“rudder”), from the same Germanic root.

Noun

stern (plural sterns)

1. (nautical) The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
2. (figuratively) The post of management or direction.
3. The hinder part of anything.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

4. The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.

Synonyms

• (of a ship): poop

Antonyms

• bow

Derived terms

• from stem to stern
• sternpost

Translations

See also

• keel
• aft

Etymology 3

From a variant of tern.

Noun

stern (plural sterns)

1. A bird, the black tern.

Translations

Anagrams

• 'rents, Ernst, Snert, nerts, rents, snert, terns

Dutch

Etymology

Possibly cognate with Latin sturnus (“starling”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?r/
• Rhymes: -?r

Noun

stern m (plural sterns or sternen, diminutive sterntje n)

1. tern

Middle English

Noun

stern

1. Alternative form of sterne

Mòcheno

Etymology

From Middle High German stërne, stërre, stërn, from Old High German sterno, from Proto-Germanic *stern?, from Proto-Indo-European *h?st?r (“star”). Cognate with German Stern, English star.

Noun

stern m

1. star

References

• Anthony R. Rowley, Liacht as de sproch: Grammatica della lingua mòchena Deutsch-Fersentalerisch, TEMI, 2003.

Piedmontese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?r?/

Noun

stern m

1. breastbone

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.