Dilemma vs Difficult - What's the difference?
dilemma | difficult |
A circumstance in which a choice must be made between two or more alternatives that seem equally undesirable.
* Jonathan Swift
A difficult circumstance or problem.
(logic) A type of syllogism of the form "if A is true then B is true; if C is true then D is true; either A or C is true; therefore either B or D is true".
(rhetoric) Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.
*
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.
As a noun dilemma
is dilemma (a situation with two (or more) alternatives to choose from, and where all alternatives are unsatisfactory or undesirable ).As an adjective difficult is
hard, not easy, requiring much effort.As a verb difficult is
(obsolete|transitive) to make difficult; to impede; to perplex.dilemma
English
Noun
(en-noun)- A strong dilemma in a desperate case! / To act with infamy, or quit the place.
Usage notes
* The sense of a difficult circumstance or problem is considered non-standard[by whom?]. * Occasionally spelled/misspelled as dilemna'', perhaps originally via false analogy with words such as ''condemn'', ''solemn'', and ''hymn . This spelling has been reportedly taught in many regions of Great Britain and the United States as well as around the world; and can be found in the works of many well-known authors (e.g. Watts, Defroe & Goldsmith).World Wide Words: Dilemma
Synonyms
* (circumstance in which a choice must be made between two alternatives) * (any difficult circumstance) bind, fix, pickle, problem, quandary * (logic) * (rhetoric) * See alsoDerived terms
* on the horns of a dilemmaSee also
* * between a rock and a hard place * between the devil and the deep blue sea * between Scylla and Charybdis * Buridan's assReferences
Anagrams
* ----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.