Difficulty
Difficulty noun - Something that is a cause for suffering or special effort especially in the attainment of a goal.
Usage example: the many difficulties that he encountered on the road from poor orphan to head of a major corporation
Obstacle is a synonym for difficulty in problem topic. In some cases you can use "Obstacle" instead a noun "Difficulty", when it comes to topics like fuss, barrier, obstruction, impediment. popular alternative
Nearby Word: difficult
Obstacle
Obstacle noun - Something that makes movement or progress difficult.
Usage example: stumbling on all the obstacles along the path
Difficulty is a synonym for obstacle in fuss topic. You can use "Difficulty" instead a noun "Obstacle", if it concerns topics such as barrier, impediment, hindrance, objection. popular alternative
Mutual synonyms
Related pairs
- block and difficulty
- block and obstacle
- trouble and difficulty
- trouble and obstacle
- jam and difficulty
- jam and obstacle
- problem and difficulty
- problem and obstacle
- complication and difficulty
- complication and obstacle
- hitch and difficulty
- hitch and obstacle
- predicament and difficulty
- predicament and obstacle
How words are described
| particular | particular difficulty | particular obstacle |
| similar | similar difficulty | similar obstacle |
| certain | certain difficulty | certain obstacle |
| current | current difficulty | current obstacle |
| Other adjectives: standard, actual, real, great, serious, little, main, easy, new, less, extra, significant, next, hardest. | ||
Both words in one sentence
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Difficulty Spike: Every third chapter in the first game threw every obstacle at you that it could, and doesn't ease up.
Source: Video Game / Bubsy -
G4 would continue to air Ninja Warrior in the US through 2013.At its core, Sasuke works like an obstacle course with the difficulty knob turned up to "Nightmare Mode" before getting broken off.
Source: Series / Ninja Warrior - The official reason is due to the difficulty in creating text-to-speech synthesis for non-Japanese languages, an obstacle that was overcome for the 3DS iteration of the series.
Source: No Export For You / Video Games
Cite this Source
Obstacle and Difficulty. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 21, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/difficulty/obstacle
Difficulty & Obstacle. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/difficulty/obstacle>.
Obstacle or Difficulty. 2016. Accessed July 21, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/difficulty/obstacle.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "difficulty" and "obstacle" have occurred on timeline