difficulty
part of speech
noun (a difficulty, difficulties; also uncountable)
meaning for a pupil
1) How hard something is to do or understand (the level of difficulty). tree →
2) A problem or a thing that is hard to deal with. tree →
3) Trouble or worry, especially about money («in difficulty», «financial difficulties»). tree →
4) «With difficulty»: in a way that takes a lot of effort. tree →
sense in the lessons
In school, the difficulty of questions or levels; in sport and games, difficulty settings. In stories, characters face difficulties. In safety, a swimmer in difficulty needs help. Phrases: «have difficulty (in) doing», «with difficulty», «in difficulty», «without difficulty».
examples
- The questions go up in difficulty. tree →
- I had difficulty finding the answer. tree →
- He climbed the tree with difficulty. tree →
- The lifeguard helped a swimmer in difficulty. tree →
- The family faced many difficulties. tree →
- She passed the test without difficulty. tree →
- The game has three difficulty levels: easy, medium and hard. tree →
- The difficulty is which one to choose. tree →
note
Countable (difficulties = problems) and uncountable (difficulty = how hard). «Have difficulty + -ing»: I have difficulty reading. Adjective «difficult». In safety: if someone is in difficulty in water, call for help and do not jump in yourself.
In the corpora
- Computer players in games are AI opponents, usually with difficulty levels that people set.
- «The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small.
- Dyslexia is a lasting difficulty with reading and spelling; only a specialist can identify it, never from one mistake.
- "Learning difficulties" is the British official term for an intellectual disability.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «difficulty» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.