What is the difference between difficult and hard?
difficult | hard | Synonyms |
Hard, not easy, requiring much effort.
* (Nathaniel Hawthorne) (1804-1864)
* 2008 , Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (ISBN 0307483762), page 199:
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
(label) Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
# Resistant to pressure.
# (label) Strong.
# (label) High in dissolved calcium compounds.
# Having the capability of being a permanent magnet by being a material with high magnetic coercivity (compare soft).
(label) Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
# Requiring a lot of effort to do or understand.
#* 1988 , An Oracle , Edmund White
#*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-26, author=
, volume=189, issue=7, page=32, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= # Demanding a lot of effort to endure.
# Severe, harsh, unfriendly, brutal.
# (label) Difficult to resist or control; powerful.
#* (w, Roger L'Estrange) (1616-1704)
#* (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
Unquestionable.
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 19, author=Kerry Brown, work=The Guardian
, title= (label) Having a comparatively larger or a ninety-degree angle.
Sexually aroused.
(label) Having muscles that are tightened as a result of intense, regular exercise.
(label)
# Plosive.
# Unvoiced
(label) Having a severe property; presenting a barrier to enjoyment.
# Rigid in the drawing or distribution of the figures; formal; lacking grace of composition.
# Having disagreeable and abrupt contrasts in colour or shading.
(label) In the form of a hard copy.
(manner) With much force or effort.
* Dryden
* Shakespeare
*
(manner) With difficulty.
(obsolete) So as to raise difficulties.
* Sir Thomas Browne
(manner) Compactly.
Near, close.
* Bible, Acts xviii. 7
* 1999 , (George RR Martin), A Clash of Kings , Bantam 2011, p. 418:
(nautical) A firm or paved beach or slope convenient for hauling vessels out of the water
Hard is a antonym of difficult.
Hard is a synonym of difficult.
As adjectives the difference between difficult and hard
is that difficult is hard, not easy, requiring much effort while hard is having a severe property; presenting difficulty.As a verb difficult
is to make difficult; to impede; to perplex.As an adverb hard is
with much force or effort.As a noun hard is
a firm or paved beach or slope convenient for hauling vessels out of the water.difficult
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, and difficult world, alone.
- In adults, the same kind of anger has been studied in people trying to solve a very difficult math problem. Though the tough math problem is very frustrating, there is an active attempt to solve the problem and meet the goal.
Boundary problems, passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.
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: Other 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 alsoDerived terms
* difficultlyStatistics
*External links
* * 1000 English basic wordshard
English
Adjective
(er)- Ray found it hard to imagine having accumulated so many mannerisms before the dawn of sex, of the sexual need to please, of the staginess sex encourages or the tightly capped wells of poisoned sexual desire the disappointed must stand guard over.
Nick Miroff
Mexico gets a taste for eating insects […], passage=The San Juan market is Mexico City's most famous deli of exotic meats, where an adventurous shopper can hunt down hard -to-find critters such as ostrich, wild boar and crocodile.}}
- The stag was too hard for the horse.
- a power which will be always too hard for them
Kim Jong-il obituary, passage=Unsurprisingly for a man who went into mourning for three years after the death in 1994 of his own father, the legendary leader Kim Il-sung, and who in the first 30 years of his political career made no public statements, even to his own people, Kim's career is riddled with claims, counter claims, speculation, and contradiction. There are few hard facts about his birth and early years. }}
- Hard' ''k'', ''t'', ''s'', ''ch'', as distinguished from '''soft , ''g'', ''d'', ''z'', ''j
- We need both a digital archive and a hard archive.
Synonyms
* (resistant to pressure ): resistant, solid, stony * (requiring a lot of effort to do or understand ): confusing, difficult, puzzling, tough, tricky * (requiring a lot of effort to endure ): difficult, intolerable, tough, unbearable * (severe ): harsh, hostile, severe, strict, tough, unfriendly * (unquestionable ): incontrovertible, indubitable, unambiguous, unequivocal, unquestionable * (of drink ): strong * See alsoAntonyms
* (resistant to pressure ): soft * (requiring a lot of effort to do or understand ): easy, simple, straightforward, trite * (requiring a lot of effort to endure ): bearable, easy * (severe ): agreeable, amiable, approachable, friendly, nice, pleasant * (unquestionable ): controvertible, doubtful, ambiguous, equivocal, questionable * (of drink ): ** (low in alcohol ): low-alcohol ** (non-alcoholic ): alcohol-free, soft, non-alcoholic * (of roads) soft * ("sexually aroused"): soft, flaccidDerived terms
* between a rock and a hard place * die-hard * hard as nails * hard-ass * hardboard * hard-boiled * hard by * hard candy * hard case * hard cheese * hard-coded * hard copy * hardcore * hard disk/hard disc * hard done by * hard drink * hard-edged * harden * hard feelings * hard grass * hard hat * hard head * hard-hearted * hard-hitting * hard knocks * hard labor * hard light * hard-liner * hard lines * hard luck * hardness * hard news * hard-on * hard-pressed * hard radiation * hard sauce * hard science fiction * hard-shell * hard times * hard to come by * hard to please * hard up * hardware * hard water * hard-wire * hardwood * hard work * have it hard * play hard to get * (hard)Adverb
(er)- He hit the puck hard up the ice.
- They worked hard all week.
- At the intersection, bear hard left.
- The recession hit them especially hard .
- Think hard about your choices.
- prayed so hard for mercy from the prince
- My father / Is hard at study; pray now, rest yourself.
- His degree was hard earned.
- The vehicle moves hard .
- The question is hard set.
- The lake had finally frozen hard .
- whose house joined hard to the synagogue
- It was another long day's march before they glimpsed the towers of Harrenhal in the distance, hard beside the blue waters of the lake.