Word.ws English Dictionary

difficulties

/ˈdɪfɪkəltiz/

difficulties is the plural of difficulty.

Meaning of difficulty

Noun

difficulty (countable and uncountable, plural difficulties)

  1. The state of being difficult, or hard to do.
    • My mom is old and has a lot of difficulty (in) remembering all her grandchildren's names.
  2. An obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal.
    • We faced a difficulty in trying to book a flight so late.
    Synonyms:
    trouble
  3. (in plural, sometimes) Physical danger from the environment, especially with risk of drowning
    • 2012 August 2, "Children rescued after getting into difficulties in Donegal" BBC Online
  4. An objection.
  5. That which cannot be easily understood or believed.
  6. An awkward situation or quarrel.

Noun

difficulties pl (plural only)

  1. (colloquial, plural, plural-only) a series of frustrations

Words formed from difficulties

Phrases with difficulties

Questions about difficulties

What does difficulties mean?
Difficulties means a series of frustrations.
What is difficulties the plural of?
Difficulties is the plural of difficulty.
What part of speech is difficulties?
Difficulties is a noun.
How do you pronounce difficulties?
Difficulties is pronounced /ˈdɪfɪkəltiz/.

Words near difficulties in the dictionary

  1. difficultated
  2. difficultating
  3. difficulted
  4. difficulter
  5. difficultest
  6. difficulties
  7. difficulting
  8. difficultly
  9. difficultness
  10. difficults
  11. difficulty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: difficulties (page history and authors); difficulty (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-difficulties.ogg.

Cite this entry: “difficulties.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/difficulties. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.