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Plight vs Difficult - What's the difference?

plight | difficult |

As verbs the difference between plight and difficult

is that plight is to expose to risk; to pledge while difficult is to make difficult; to impede; to perplex.

As a noun plight

is a dire or unfortunate situation.

As an adjective difficult is

hard, not easy, requiring much effort.

plight

English

Etymology 1

(etyl) ).

Noun

(en noun)
  • A dire or unfortunate situation.
  • *{{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 10, author=Arindam Rej, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Norwich 4-2 Newcastle , passage=A second Norwich goal in four minutes arrived after some dire Newcastle defending. Gosling gave the ball away with a sloppy back-pass, allowing Crofts to curl in a cross that the unmarked Morison powered in with a firm, 12-yard header. ¶ Gosling's plight worsened when he was soon shown a red card for a foul on Martin.}}
  • *2005 , Lesley Brown, translating Plato, Sophist , :
  • *:Though we say we are quite clear about it and understand when someone uses the expression, unlike that other expression, maybe we're in the same plight with regard to them both.
  • *, II.8:
  • *:although hee live in as good plight and health as may be, yet he chafeth, he scoldeth, he brawleth, he fighteth, he sweareth, and biteth, as the most boistrous and tempestuous master of France .
  • (obsolete) Good health.
  • *1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.7:
  • *:All wayes shee sought him to restore to plight , / With herbs, with charms, with counsel, and with teares.
  • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) . More at pledge.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Responsibility for ensuing consequences; risk; danger; peril.
  • An instance of danger or peril; a dangerous moment or situation.
  • Blame; culpability; fault; wrong-doing; sin; crime.
  • One's office; duty; charge.
  • (archaic) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.
  • * Shakespeare
  • that lord whose hand must take my plight
    Derived terms
    * (l) * (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To expose to risk; to pledge.
  • Specifically, to pledge (one's troth etc.) as part of a marriage ceremony.
  • (reflexive) To promise (oneself) to someone, or to do something.
  • * 1992 , Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety , Harper Perennial 2007, p. 226:
  • I ask what I have done to deserve it, one daughter hobnobbing with radicals and the other planning to plight herself to a criminal.
    Derived terms
    * (l)

    Etymology 3

    Through (etyl), from (etyl) and Danish flette are probably unrelated.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.
  • * Milton
  • A plighted garment of divers colors.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.
  • * Spenser
  • Many a folded plight .

    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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