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Unknown vs Difficult - What's the difference?

unknown | difficult | Related terms |

Unknown is a related term of difficult.


As adjectives the difference between unknown and difficult

is that unknown is not known; unidentified; not well known while difficult is hard, not easy, requiring much effort.

As a noun unknown

is (algebra) a variable (usually x'', ''y'' or ''z ) whose value is to be found.

As a verb difficult is

(obsolete|transitive) to make difficult; to impede; to perplex.

unknown

English

Adjective

(-)
  • Not known; unidentified; not well known.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=The Celebrity, by arts unknown , induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.}}

    Synonyms

    * anonymous * unfamiliar * uncharted * undiscovered * unexplored * unidentified * unnamed * unrecognized * unrevealed * unascertained * obscure * unsung

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (algebra) A variable (usually x'', ''y'' or ''z ) whose value is to be found.
  • Any fact or place about which nothing is known (as in the phrase "into the unknown").
  • A person of no identity; a nonentity
  • * 1965 , (Bob Dylan), (Like a Rolling Stone)
  • How does it feel
    To be on your own
    With no direction home
    Like a complete unknown
    Like a rolling stone?

    difficult

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Hard, not easy, requiring much effort.
  • * (Nathaniel Hawthorne) (1804-1864)
  • There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, and difficult world, alone.
  • * 2008 , Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (ISBN 0307483762), page 199:
  • 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.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= 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.
  • Hard to manage, uncooperative, troublesome.
  • 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 also

    Derived terms

    * difficultly

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To make difficult; to impede; to perplex.
  • Statistics

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