Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases by Peter Mark Roget

(impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task, Herculean task, Augean task†; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper†, dead lift. dilemma, embarrassment; deadlock; perplexity &c (uncertainty) 475; intricacy; entanglement, complexity &c 59; cross fire; awkwardness, delicacy, ticklish card to play, knot, Gordian knot, dignus vindice nodus [Lat.], net, meshes, maze; coil &c (convolution) 248; crooked path; involvement. nice point, delicate point, subtle point, knotty point; vexed question, vexata quaestio [Lat.], poser; puzzle &c (riddle) 533; paradox; hard nut to crack, nut to crack; bone to pick, crux, pons asinorum [Lat.], where the shoe pinches. nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress, brunt; critical situation, crisis; trial, rub, emergency, exigency, scramble. scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest; sea of troubles, peck of troubles; pretty kettle of fish; pickle, stew, imbroglio, mess, ado; false position. set fast, stand, standstill; deadlock, dead set. fix, horns of a dilemma, cul de sac [Fr.]; hitch; stumbling block &c (hindrance) 706. [difficult person] crab; curmudgeon. V. be difficult &c adj.; run one hard, go against the grain, try one's patience, put one out; put to one's shifts, put to one's wit's end; go hard with one, try one; pose, perplex &c (uncertain) 475; bother, nonplus, gravel, bring to a deadlock; be impossible &c 471; be in the way of &c (hinder) 706. meet with difficulties; labor under difficulties; get into difficulties; plunge into difficulties; struggle with difficulties; contend with difficulties; grapple with difficulties; labor under a disadvantage; be in difficulty &c adj.. fish in troubled waters, buffet the waves, swim against the stream, scud under bare poles. Have much ado with, have a hard time of it; come to the push, come to the pinch; bear the brunt. grope in the dark, lose one's way, weave a tangled web, walk among eggs. get into a scrape &c n.; bring a hornet's nest about one's ears; be put to one's shifts; flounder, boggle, struggle; not know which way to turn &c (uncertain) 475; perdre son Latin [Fr.]; stick at, stick in the mud, stick fast; come to a stand, come to a standstill, come to a deadlock; hold the wolf by the ears, hold the tiger by the tail. render difficult &c adj.; enmesh, encumber, embarrass, ravel, entangle; put a spoke in the wheel &c (hinder) 706; lead a pretty dance. Adj. difficult, not easy, hard, tough; troublesome, toilsome, irksome; operose†, laborious, onerous, arduous, Herculean, formidable; sooner said than done; more easily said than done, easier said than done. difficult to deal with, hard to deal with; ill-conditioned, crabbed, crabby; not to be handled with kid gloves, not made with rose water. awkward, unwieldy, unmanageable; intractable, stubborn &c (obstinate) 606; perverse, refractory, plaguy†, trying, thorny, rugged; knotted, knotty; invious†; pathless, trackless; labyrinthine &c (convoluted) 248; intricate, complicated &c (tangled) 59; impracticable &c (impossible) 471; not feasible &c 470; desperate &c (hopeless) 859. embarrassing, perplexing &c (uncertain) 475; delicate, ticklish, critical; beset with difficulties, full of difficulties, surrounded by difficulties, entangled by difficulties, encompassed with difficulties. under a difficulty; in a box; in difficulty, in hot water, in the suds, in a cleft stick, in a fix, in the wrong box, in a scrape &c n., in deep water, in a fine pickle; in extremis; between two stools, between Scylla and Charybdis; surrounded by shoals, surrounded by breakers, surrounded by quicksands; at cross purposes; not out of the wood. reduced to straits; hard pressed, sorely pressed; run hard; pinched, put to it, straitened; hard up, hard put to it, hard set; put to one's shifts; puzzled, at a loss, &c (uncertain) 475; at the end of one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, at a standstill; graveled, nonplused, nonplussed, stranded, aground; stuck fast, set fast; up a tree, at bay, aux abois [Fr.], driven into a corner, driven from pillar to post, driven to extremity, driven to one's wit's end, driven to the wall; au bout de son Latin; out of one's depth; thrown out. accomplished with difficulty; hard-fought, hard-earned. Adv. with difficulty, with much ado; barely, hardly &c adj.; uphill; against the stream, against the grain; d rebours [Fr.]; invita Minerva [Lat.]; in the teeth of; at a pinch, upon a pinch; at long odds, against long odds. Phr. ay there's the rub [Hamlet]; hic labor hoc opus [Lat.] [Vergil]; things are come to a pretty pass, ab inconvenienti [Lat.]; ad astra per aspera [Lat.]; acun chemin de fleurs ne conduit a la gloire [Fr.].