difficult -
not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure; "a difficult task"; "nesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access"; "difficult times"; "why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?"
easy obtained with little effort or sacrifice, often obtained illegally; "easy money"
demanding requiring more than usually expected or thought due; especially great patience and effort and skill; "found the job very demanding"; "a baby can be so demanding"
arduous difficult to accomplish; demanding considerable mental effort and skill; "the arduous work of preparing a dictionary"
embarrassing,
unenviable,
sticky,
awkward causing to feel shame or chagrin or vexation; "the embarrassing moment when she found her petticoat down around her ankles"; "it was mortifying to know he had heard every word"
baffling,
problematic,
problematical,
elusive,
knotty,
tough making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe; "a baffling problem"; "I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast"; "a problematic situation at home"
catchy,
tricky having concealed difficulty; "a catchy question"; "a tricky recipe to follow"
ticklish,
touchy,
delicate exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury; "a delicate violin passage"; "delicate china"; "a delicate flavor"; "the delicate wing of a butterfly"
fractious unpredictably difficult in operation; likely to be troublesome; "rockets were much too fractious to be tested near thickly populated areas"; "fractious components of a communication system"
hard-fought requiring great effort; "a hard-fought primary"
herculean extremely difficult; requiring the strength of a Hercules; "a herculean task"
nasty,
tight exasperatingly difficult to handle or circumvent; "a nasty problem"; "a good man to have on your side in a tight situation"
rocky,
rough full of hardship or trials; "the rocky road to success"; "they were having a rough time"
rugged,
tough sturdy and strong in constitution or construction; enduring; "with a house full of boys you have to have rugged furniture"
serious requiring effort or concentration; complex and not easy to answer or solve; "raised serious objections to the proposal"; "the plan has a serious flaw"
defiant,
noncompliant boldly resisting authority or an opposing force; "brought up to be aggressive and defiant"; "a defiant attitude"
disobedient not obeying or complying with commands of those in authority; "disobedient children"
intractable not tractable; difficult to manage or mold; "an intractable disposition"; "intractable pain"; "the most intractable issue of our era"; "intractable metal"
