difficulties
- 1Plural of difficulty.
The negotiations ran into serious difficulties over funding.
Several technical difficulties delayed the rocket launch.
Note
Only the countable side of difficulty takes this form: obstacles, objections, awkward quarrels, things hard to believe. The uncountable state of being hard has no plural, so a task is of some difficulty, never of some difficulties. One sense leans toward the plural on its own, physical danger, especially of drowning, as in a swimmer in difficulties. The spelling follows the regular rule for a consonant plus y: -y becomes -ies.
- 2A connected string of frustrations or troubles that arrive one after another.
Their move overseas brought a fresh wave of difficulties almost every week.
The startup limped along through endless difficulties before it finally folded.
Similartroubles, problems, setbacks, woes, hardships
Note
Here the plural is the meaning, not just the grammar. The sense exists only in this form, and a single frustration would not carry it. It belongs to casual talk about a run of bad luck, such as a move, a venture or a hard stretch of months, where the ordinary plural would simply count separate problems. In this sense the noun names the whole string, not its links.
difficulties is a form of difficulty
difficulty, noun: The condition or quality of being hard to do or accomplish. Full entry
- Forms
- difficultydifficulties plural
- Spelling
- difficulty → difficulties: change y to i, add -es
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with difficulties, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.