Etymology Explorer › French

Where does “difficulté” come from?

difficulté (French) comes from Middle French difficulté, from Old French difficulté, from Latin difficultas, from Latin difficilis, from Latin facilis, from Latin faciō, from Latin -torium, from Latin -tōrius.

difficulté (French): difficulty

Definitions

  1. difficulty

Ancestry of “difficulté”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Frenchdifficultédifficulty
2Old Frenchdifficultédifficulty
3Latindifficultasdifficulty, distress, trouble, hardship
4Latindifficilisdifficult, hard, troublesome; obstinate,...
5Latinfacilisthat may or can be done or made; easy, facile
6Latinfaciō—
7Latin-toriumnominative neuter singular of -tōrius; accusative...
8Latin-tōrius—
9Latin-tor-er
10Proto-Italic-tōr—
11Proto-Indo-European-tōrDerives agent nouns from verbs, denoting someone...
12Proto-Indo-European-tor-s—

Words derived from “difficulté”

  • difficultueux
  • difficultueusement
  • difikilte
Every word from Proto-Indo-European -tor-s →