A situation or condition almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome

Usage examples of difficulty.

Close to the battle, he had as much difficulty making himself heard as those aboard Endymion.

The seven American generals had their problems, too, but each had a bevy of subalterns to solve them, while French and English businessmen encountered much difficulty in acquiring even basic necessities.

At first Mr Passant, the post-master, made some difficulties but at last he consented and to my surprise he handed me, in addition to a letter for my mother, one addressed to Bissett.

Not but that the duke of Queensberry at one time despaired of succeeding, and being in continual apprehension for his life, expressed a desire of adjourning the parliament, until by time and good management he should be able to remove those difficulties that then seemed to be insurmountable.

The relief of the stricture by our new and painless method was followed by very great improvement in his condition, after which appropriate remedies for the rheumatism were administered, and the result was a very gratifying and satisfactory relief from his difficulty.

As santonin is almost entirely tasteless, if not combined with other medicines which are unpalatable, no difficulty will be experienced in administering it to children.

A long siege and an artful negotiation, admonished the king of the Franks of the danger and difficulty of his enterprise.

I have never seen this adventurer without his being in a desperate state of impecuniosity, but he would never learn to abate his luxurious habits, and always managed to find some way or other out of his difficulties.

It causes tickling and frequent desire to clear the throat, change, weakness, or entire loss of voice, and difficulty of breathing, frequently giving rise to the most persistent and aggravating cough.

But She gave him not the slightest inkling of the difficulties he might face, hinting only that, as with the test of his faithfulness to ahimsa, part of the test would be his ability to discover the true nature of the test and why he was being tested.

The difficulty of procuring provisions was extreme, and the means he was compelled to employ for that purpose greatly heightened the evil, at the same time insubordination and want of discipline prevailed to such an alarming degree that it would be as difficult as painful to depict the situation of our army at this period, Marmont, by his steady conduct, fortunately succeeded in correcting the disorders which prevailed, and very soon found himself at the head of a well-organised army, amounting to 30,000 infantry, with forty pieces of artillery, but he had only a very small body of cavalry, and those ill-mounted.

Sir Amias Paulet, and reduced to a more rigorous confinement, he experienced so much difficulty and danger in rendering her this service, that he had desisted from every attempt of that nature.

I was not really amorous of her, I had no difficulty in playing the part of the timid lover.

If there was one difficulty about being a patrician of the Julii Caesares, it was that all his seniors to date were only too aware how much greater and more august his ancestry was than theirs.

The ancipital race, to which we can ascribe many of our human difficulties over the ages, is not a race of new invaders, like the Driats.