(impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task,
Herculean task, Augean task†; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough
job, teaser, rasper†, dead lift.
dilemma, embarrassment; deadlock; perplexity &c (uncertainty) 475;
intricacy; entanglement, complexity &c 59; cross fire; awkwardness,
delicacy, ticklish card to play, knot, Gordian knot, dignus vindice
nodus [Lat.], net, meshes, maze; coil &c (convolution) 248; crooked
path; involvement.
nice point, delicate point, subtle point, knotty point; vexed
question, vexata quaestio [Lat.], poser; puzzle &c (riddle) 533;
paradox; hard nut to crack, nut to crack; bone to pick, crux, pons
asinorum [Lat.], where the shoe pinches.
nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress,
brunt; critical situation, crisis; trial, rub, emergency, exigency,
scramble.
scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest; sea of
troubles, peck of troubles; pretty kettle of fish; pickle, stew,
imbroglio, mess, ado; false position.
set fast, stand, standstill; deadlock, dead set.
fix, horns of a dilemma, cul de sac [Fr.]; hitch; stumbling block
&c (hindrance) 706.
[difficult person] crab; curmudgeon.
V. be difficult &c adj.; run one hard, go against the grain, try one's
patience, put one out; put to one's shifts, put to one's wit's end; go
hard with one, try one; pose, perplex &c (uncertain) 475; bother,
nonplus, gravel, bring to a deadlock; be impossible &c 471; be in the
way of &c (hinder) 706.
meet with difficulties; labor under difficulties; get into
difficulties; plunge into difficulties; struggle with difficulties;
contend with difficulties; grapple with difficulties; labor under a
disadvantage; be in difficulty &c adj.. fish in troubled waters, buffet
the waves, swim against the stream, scud under bare poles.
Have much ado with, have a hard time of it; come to the push, come
to the pinch; bear the brunt.
grope in the dark, lose one's way, weave a tangled web, walk among
eggs.
get into a scrape &c n.; bring a hornet's nest about one's ears;
be put to one's shifts; flounder, boggle, struggle; not know which way
to turn &c (uncertain) 475; perdre son Latin [Fr.]; stick at, stick in
the mud, stick fast; come to a stand, come to a standstill, come to a
deadlock; hold the wolf by the ears, hold the tiger by the tail.
render difficult &c adj.; enmesh, encumber, embarrass, ravel,
entangle; put a spoke in the wheel &c (hinder) 706; lead a pretty
dance.
Adj. difficult, not easy, hard, tough; troublesome, toilsome, irksome;
operose†, laborious, onerous, arduous, Herculean, formidable; sooner
said than done; more easily said than done, easier said than done.
difficult to deal with, hard to deal with; ill-conditioned,
crabbed, crabby; not to be handled with kid gloves, not made with rose
water.
awkward, unwieldy, unmanageable; intractable, stubborn &c
(obstinate) 606; perverse, refractory, plaguy†, trying, thorny, rugged;
knotted, knotty; invious†; pathless, trackless; labyrinthine &c
(convoluted) 248; intricate, complicated &c (tangled) 59; impracticable
&c (impossible) 471; not feasible &c 470; desperate &c (hopeless) 859.
embarrassing, perplexing &c (uncertain) 475; delicate, ticklish,
critical; beset with difficulties, full of difficulties, surrounded by
difficulties, entangled by difficulties, encompassed with difficulties.
under a difficulty; in a box; in difficulty, in hot water, in the
suds, in a cleft stick, in a fix, in the wrong box, in a scrape &c n.,
in deep water, in a fine pickle; in extremis; between two stools,
between Scylla and Charybdis; surrounded by shoals, surrounded by
breakers, surrounded by quicksands; at cross purposes; not out of the
wood.
reduced to straits; hard pressed, sorely pressed; run hard;
pinched, put to it, straitened; hard up, hard put to it, hard set; put
to one's shifts; puzzled, at a loss, &c (uncertain) 475; at the end of
one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a
nonplus, at a standstill; graveled, nonplused, nonplussed, stranded,
aground; stuck fast, set fast; up a tree, at bay, aux abois [Fr.],
driven into a corner, driven from pillar to post, driven to extremity,
driven to one's wit's end, driven to the wall; au bout de son Latin;
out of one's depth; thrown out.
accomplished with difficulty; hard-fought, hard-earned.
Adv. with difficulty, with much ado; barely, hardly &c adj.; uphill;
against the stream, against the grain; d rebours [Fr.]; invita Minerva
[Lat.]; in the teeth of; at a pinch, upon a pinch; at long odds,
against long odds.
Phr. ay there's the rub [Hamlet]; hic labor hoc opus [Lat.] [Vergil];
things are come to a pretty pass, ab inconvenienti [Lat.]; ad astra per
aspera [Lat.]; acun chemin de fleurs ne conduit a la gloire [Fr.].