difícil

Forms

difícil m or f (masculine and feminine plural difíciles, superlative dificilísimo)^[1] The 15th century wrote difícile and difficile.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin difficilis (“hard to do; hard to deal with”), a learned word.^[2][4][1] Vox dates the borrowing to the 15th century.^[5] The Spanish nouns and verbs dificultad and dificultar were taken in the same way from Latin, the noun from difficultas.^[2]

The adjective is formed from Latin dis- + facilis (“easy”), and facilis is from faciō (“to do, make”) with the suffix -ilis; the related fácil and hacer belong to the same root.^[6][7][1][8] Old Latin also had the neuter difficul.^[6][9]

Portuguese difícil, Catalan difícil, French difficile and Italian difficile were borrowed from the same Latin word.^[1][10] French has it from 1330.^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is the Corbacho, with the form difícile.^[2] The CDH has earlier hits in the Aragonese translations of Juan Fernández de Heredia (1376–1396): Crecer muller pobra difficil cosa es “to bring up a poor woman is a hard thing”.^[11] In all of them it means “hard to do or bear”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 uses dificile to gloss Latin words, and his Spanish–Latin vocabulary equates it with dificultosa.^[3] The Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as what is hard to do, obtain or understand.^[12]

Applied to a person, “hard to please”, it was condemned by Baralt in 1855 as a crude Gallicism.^[13] Román, quoting the Jesuit Mir, accepted it for a bad-tempered person but not for a fussy one, which he considered French.^[14] The DLE now also gives “unlikely” and, for a face, “odd”.^[4] In Mexico a difícil person can be clumsy.^[15]

Timeline

• 1376–1396 – earliest hits in the CDH, in the Aragonese works of Juan Fernández de Heredia.^[11]
• 1438 – first record in Castilian, in the Corbacho, as difícile.^[2][16]
• c. 1440 – first record of dificultoso.^[2]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary uses dificile in its glosses.^[3]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades says it is taken from Latin difficilis.^[12]
• 1746 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[17]
• 1855 – Baralt condemns its use for a person hard to please.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. difficult, hard: presenting obstacles, needing much effort or skill: un examen difícil.^[4][1]
2. unlikely: Es difícil que hoy llueva.^[4][1]
3. Of a person: hard to please or to deal with.^[4][18]
4. Of a face: odd, plain.^[4][18]
5. (Mexico) Of a person: clumsy.^[15]

Word family

• difícilmente

Related words

• dificultad
• dificultar
• fácil
• dificultoso
• Latin difficilis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 297
3. ^ a b c Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. difícil
4. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. difícil
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. difícil
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. difficilis
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. facilis
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. difficilis
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. difícil
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. difícil
13. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 242
14. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 144
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. difícil
16. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 236
17. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. defícil
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. difícil