Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use difficulty in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun

Difficulty means the state of being difficult, or hard to do. Example: “My mom is old and has a lot of difficulty (in) remembering all her grandchildren's names.”

Examples of difficulty by meaning

nounThe 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.

nounAn obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal.

  • We faced a difficulty in trying to book a flight so late.
  • The two-hour debate was briefly stalled by a technical difficulty with the moderators’ microphones.2019 June 27, Lauren Gambino, “Democratic 2020 candidates clash on healthcare, immigration and economy in first debate”, in The Guardian

nounPhysical danger from the environment, especially with risk of drowning.

  • 2012 August 2, "Children rescued after getting into difficulties in Donegal" BBC Online
  • The three teenagers, a girl and two boys, were playing by the river when it is believed they got into difficulty.2016 February 24, Catherine Shanahan, “Boy, 13, drowns after getting into difficulty in river”, in Irish Examiner
  • Members of the public had called 999 as they were concerned the kayaker was in difficulty around the headland race due to very strong spring tides and choppy seas with the kayaker making no headway.2016 March 14, “Kayaker rescued after getting into difficulty”, in Bournemouth Echo

More sentences with difficulty

  • Regular chores can be appropriate for children, given age-appropriate limits on difficulty level and time on task.From the entry child
  • The rotund man had difficulty belting his pants, and generally wore suspenders to avoid the issue.From the entry belt
  • I had difficulty reaching the commander, but eventually my call was routed through.From the entry through
  • I came out after a period of difficulty in my life.From the entry come out
  • We climbed the mountain with difficulty, but the descent was easier.From the entry descent
  • She has no trouble getting off a bus but has difficulty getting on.From the entry get on
  • Now that the technical difficulties have been taken care of, let's get on with the show!From the entry get on with
  • A man who dies intestate leaves his children troubles and difficulties.From the entry a
  • He is quite disorganized and has difficulty planning his day or remembering when his homework is due.From the entry disorganized
  • Due to economic difficulties, the company will be making headcount adjustments.From the entry headcount
  • The city was already having staffing difficulties, not to mention having a three million dollar budget shortfall.From the entry not to mention
  • Overeruption can cause interferences in the occlusion and difficulty when constructing dentures.From the entry overeruption
  • Approach B is better than approach A in many respects, but again, there are difficulties in implementing it.From the entry again
  • We had difficulty understanding him with his thick accent.From the entry thick
  • The greatest difficulty lies in treating patients with chronic pain.From the entry pain
  • I'm having difficulty getting up the stairs.From the entry get up
  • The foundation of his institute has been wrought with difficulty.From the entry foundation
  • Getting everybody to agree proved to be an insurmountable difficulty.From the entry insurmountable
  • We had difficulty in finding the correct descent.From the entry descent
  • We negotiated the mountain track with difficulty.From the entry negotiate
  • He farmed his marginal land with difficulty.From the entry marginal
  • Many people with dyspraxia have difficulty with tying shoelaces.From the entry dyspraxia
  • Encountering difficulties with the parcels’ unhelpful recipient, the deliveryman unceremoniously dumped the packages in the street outside the door.From the entry unceremoniously
  • He has learning difficulties because of his short attention span.From the entry attention span
  • Well, I’m having difficulties with the heating, for one thing.From the entry for one thing
  • The rocky soil was diggable, but only with difficulty.From the entry diggable
  • He finagled his way out of the difficulty.From the entry one's way
  • Early signs of Duchenne muscular dystrophy may include pseudohypertrophy (enlargement of calf muscles), low endurance, and difficulties in standing unaided or inability to ascend staircases.From the entry pseudohypertrophy
  • Teachers testing with informal reading inventories (selected because of comprehension difficulty unrelated to word recognition) were asked to give explanations for the miscomprehensions of their students.From the entry miscomprehension
  • With considerable difficulty, Blake Taylor, the neurosurgeon who operated on her, stopped the bleeding.2025 November 30, David Darlington, “The Shocking Crash That Led Marin County to Reckon With the Dangers of E-Bikes”, in The New York…. From the entry neurosurgeon
  • The idrovamolan with its telescopic, telacoustic, and telemagnetic powers came to their assistance in this difficulty.2025, Ron Miller, Alan Orloff, Tom Milani, Black Cat Weekly #204, page 961. From the entry telacoustic
  • You can filter for distance, difficulty and for circular walks only.2023 August 31, Emma Beddington, “Fish doorbells! Historic sandwiches! 50 of the weirdest, most wonderful corners of the web – picked by…. From the entry A-road
  • And difficulties which we are facing are minor if compared to those Ukrainians are meeting.2022 September 25, 4:49 from the start, in 'He's all in': Finland's president predicts Putin's next move, spoken by Sauli Niinistö, CNN…. From the entry stamina
  • The present traincrew difficulties that beset the UK rail industry are neither new nor were they unforeseeable.2022 November 16, Graham Eccles, “The Rest Day Working saga...”, in RAIL, number 970, page 32. From the entry black art

Meaning of difficulty

  1. noun The state of being difficult, or hard to do.
  2. noun An obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal.
  3. noun Physical danger from the environment, especially with risk of drowning.

Full definition of difficulty

Questions about difficulty in a sentence

How do you use difficulty in a sentence?
Difficulty is used as a noun. For example: “My mom is old and has a lot of difficulty (in) remembering all her grandchildren's names.”
What is a short sentence with difficulty?
“He farmed his marginal land with difficulty.”
What does difficulty mean?
Difficulty means the state of being difficult, or hard to do.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: difficulty (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use difficulty in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/difficulty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.