What Makes It Difficult? Choose the Word by the Kind of Trouble

1. Hard

The plainest and most flexible choice, and the nearest to difficult in meaning. It fits tasks, questions and times alike, with slightly less formality than difficult. It is also the only one here that works as an adverb meaning with effort.

Best used when: You want a short, everyday word for anything that is not easy.

Correct: Learning the cello is hard at first.

Incorrect: She studied hardly all night.

Hardly means barely, so the second sentence says she barely studied. To say she studied with great effort, use hard as an adverb: She studied hard all night.

2. Tough

More informal than hard, and it adds the idea of something that tests your resilience. A tough decision or a tough winter is one you have to push through. It also describes strict treatment, as in a tough coach.

Best used when: You are talking casually about a decision, an ordeal or a demanding opponent.

Choosing between the two job offers was a tough call.

Tone: informal

3. Challenging

Milder and more positive than demanding. It suggests the difficulty is worth facing and can be beaten. People also use it politely to avoid the harsher difficult, so readers sometimes hear a hint of understatement.

Best used when: You want to describe something hard but rewarding, such as a hike, a course or a project.

The trail is challenging but short enough for a day hike.

Strength: milder

4. Demanding

Describes whatever asks a lot of your time, skill or attention, so it attaches naturally to jobs, bosses, schedules and training. Unlike arduous, it says nothing about how long or tiring the effort is, only that a lot is asked of you.

Best used when: A job, a person or a routine keeps asking more of you.

Her job as an emergency room nurse is demanding.

5. Arduous

Formal. It means hard work sustained over a long stretch, such as a climb, a journey or a process full of steps. Demanding says a lot is asked of you, while arduous says the effort is long and tiring.

Best used when: You are describing a long, tiring effort in writing that leans formal.

The arduous trek over the pass took nine days.

Tone: formal

6. Grueling

Exhausting to the point of punishing, so it is stronger than demanding. Use it for races, schedules and interviews that leave you drained.

Best used when: You want to stress how worn out the effort leaves people.

The team finished a grueling six-hour practice in the heat.

Strength: stronger

7. Complicated

Many parts or steps that interact, so the trouble is tangling, not effort. It often hints at needless tangle, unlike complex, which is neutral and can describe something intricate but well made.

Best used when: Rules, relationships or instructions have too many moving parts.

Their custody arrangement got complicated after the move.

8. Tricky

Informal. Describes something easy to get wrong unless you take care, like parallel parking or the wording of an awkward email. It is lighter than thorny, which points to a problem with conflict or no clean answer.

Best used when: A step or situation has a trap that a careful person can avoid.

The last step is tricky, so go slowly.

Tone: informal

9. Thorny

Used for issues, questions and disputes where any answer upsets someone. It is heavier than tricky, because the trouble lies in disagreement, not in a technical trap. It rarely describes physical tasks.

Best used when: A debate or decision has no answer that pleases everyone.

The thorny question of who pays for the repairs split the committee.

10. Trying

Describes periods, experiences or people's behavior that strain your patience or endurance. It does not fit tasks: a job is demanding, while the year spent doing it can be trying. Rough is its blunter, more casual cousin.

Best used when: You are describing a stressful stretch of life or a test of patience.

It has been a trying year for the whole family.

11. Unruly

Out of control in behavior, and used for children, crowds, classes and even hair. It describes noisy disorder rather than open refusal, which is where defiant differs.

Best used when: A group or child ignores order without necessarily opposing you on purpose.

The substitute teacher lost control of an unruly class.

12. Stubborn

A person who refuses to change a position or yield, so the difficulty comes from will. It is also used for stains and problems that will not go away. It is milder and more everyday than intractable.

Best used when: Someone digs in and will not be persuaded.

My father is too stubborn to ask for directions.

13. Intractable

Formal. It describes people, conflicts or conditions that resist every attempt at managing or solving them, such as pain or a long-running dispute. It is stronger than stubborn, which suggests the person could still give in.

Best used when: Attempt after attempt has failed to settle a problem or move a person.

Negotiators faced an intractable dispute over water rights.

Tone: formal Strength: stronger