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Rough vs Difficult - What's the difference?

rough | difficult | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between rough and difficult

is that rough is having a texture that has much friction. Not smooth; uneven while difficult is hard, not easy, requiring much effort.

As verbs the difference between rough and difficult

is that rough is to create in an approximate form while difficult is to make difficult; to impede; to perplex.

As a noun rough

is the unmowed part of a golf course.

As an adverb rough

is in a rough manner; rudely; roughly.

rough

English

Alternative forms

* (colloquial) ruff

Adjective

(er)
  • Having a texture that has much friction. Not smooth; uneven.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 1
    • The rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black, rocks which emerge from the sand like something primitive. Rough with crinkled limpet shells and sparsely strewn with locks of dry seaweed, a small boy has to stretch his legs far apart, and indeed to feel rather heroic, before he gets to the top.
  • Approximate; hasty or careless; not finished.
    • a rough''' estimate; a '''rough sketch of a building
  • Turbulent.
    • The sea was rough .
  • Difficult; trying.
    • Being a teenager nowadays can be rough .
  • Crude; unrefined
    • His manners are a bit rough , but he means well.
  • Violent; not careful or subtle
    • This box has been through some rough handling.
  • Loud and hoarse; offensive to the ear; harsh; grating.
    • a rough''' tone; a '''rough voice
    (Alexander Pope)
  • Not polished; uncut; said of a gem.
    • a rough diamond
  • Harsh-tasting.
    • rough wine

    Antonyms

    * smooth

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The unmowed part of a golf course.
  • A rude fellow; a coarse bully; a rowdy.
  • (cricket) A scuffed and roughened area of the pitch, where the bowler's feet fall, used as a target by spin bowlers because of its unpredictable bounce.
  • The raw material from which faceted or cabochon gems are created.
  • A quick sketch, similar to a thumbnail, but larger and more detailed. Meant for artistic brainstorming and a vital step in the design process.
  • (obsolete) Boisterous weather.
    • (Fletcher)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To create in an approximate form.
    • Rough in the shape first, then polish the details.
  • To physically assault someone in retribution.
    • The gangsters roughed him up a little.
  • (ice hockey) To commit the offense of roughing, i.e. to punch another player.
  • To render rough; to roughen.
  • To break in (a horse, etc.), especially for military purposes.
    • (Crabb)

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • In a rough manner; rudely; roughly.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • Sleeping rough on the trenches, and dying stubbornly in their boats.

    Derived terms

    * bit of rough * diamond in the rough * rough and ready * roughhouse * rough in * roughness * rough out * rough up

    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

    *

    External links

    * * 1000 English basic words