difficulty
/ˈdɪfɪkəlti/noun
difficulty is spelled D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is dificulty: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 26 of all searches for the word. Difficulty is a noun meaning “The state of being difficult, or hard to do”. The plural of difficulty is difficulties.
How many letters and syllables are in difficulty?
| Letters | 10: D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 21 times per million words; the 4,076th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, dificulty, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell difficulty?
Difficulty is spelled D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T-Y. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 22 of the searches for difficulty in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is difficulty?
Difficulty appears 21 times per million words in written English, the 4,076th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce difficulty?
- /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/
Difficulty has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-difficulty.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-difficulty.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of difficulty
- difficulties plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does difficulty mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 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.
- 3
Physical danger from the environment, especially with risk of drowning
- 4
An objection.
- 5
That which cannot be easily understood or believed.
- 6
An awkward situation or quarrel.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Difficulty in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | difficulté |
| German | Schwierigkeit |
| Portuguese | dificuldade |
| Spanish | dificultad , cortapisa |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does difficulty come from?
From Middle English difficulte, from Middle French and Anglo-Norman difficulte and their etymon Latin difficultas, from difficul, older form of difficilis (“hard to do, difficult”), from dis- + facilis (“easy”); see difficile and difficult. Equivalent to dis- + facile + -ty. Also analysable as difficult + -y, though the adjective is historically a backformation from the noun.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).