List of 426 Sets of Synonyms - How they Differ - Total of 2307 Words - 180

SYNONYMS: hard, difficult, arduous.
These adjectives are compared as they mean requiring great physical or mental effort to do, achieve, or master.

Hard is the most general term: Why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?
Difficult and hard are interchangeable in many instances: a difficult (or hard) subject; a book that is difficult (or hard) to find.
Difficult, however, is often preferable where the need for skill or ingenuity is implied: All poetry is difficult to read, the sense of it is, anyhow.
Arduous refers to what involves burdensome labor or sustained physical or spiritual effort: knowledge at which Newton arrived through arduous and circuitous paths. Negotiating nuclear arms is a arduous undertaking.