- difficult
- difficult: [14] Difficult means literally ‘not easy’. It is a back-formation from difficulty [14], which was borrowed from Latin difficultās. This was a derivative of the adjective difficilis (source of French difficile), which was a compound formed from the prefix dis- ‘not’ and facilis ‘easy’ (whence English facile [15]).
=> facile - difficult (adj.)
- c. 1400, apparently a back-formation from difficulty. French has difficile, Latin difficilis. Of persons, "hard to please," from 1580s.