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nfaithfulness or fraud; as, to shirk duty. The usual makeshift by which they try to shirk difficulties. Hare.

Affected with shortness of breath; having a quick, difficult respiration, as dyspnoic and asthmatic persons. May.

A knot or complication of hair, thread, or the like, difficult to disentangle; entanglement; hence, intricate complication; embarrassing difficulty.

luble or solvable; as, the solubility of a salt; the solubility of a problem or intricate difficulty.

of solving, or the state of being solved; the disentanglement of any intricate problem or difficult question; explanation; clearing up; -- used especially in mathematics, either of the process of solving an equation or problem, or the result of the process.

The quality or state of being solvable; as, the solvability of a difficulty; the solvability of a problem.

lve; to unfold; to clear up out to a result or conclusion; as, to solve a doubt; to solve difficulties; to solve a problem. True piety would effectually solve such scruples. South. God shall solve the dark decrees of fate. Tickell.

Profound sleep from which a person can be roused only with difficulty.

Fig.: Grief; affliction; trouble; difficulty. Chaucer. I see plainly where his sore lies. Sir W. Scott. Gold sore. (Med.) See under Gold, n.

to sow wheat. Also used figuratively: To spread abroad; to propagate. "He would sow some difficulty." Chaucer. A sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside. Matt. xiii. 3, 4. And sow dissension in the hearts of brothers. Addison.

To discover by characters or marks; to read with difficulty; -- usually with out; as, to spell out the sense of an author; to spell out a verse in the Bible. To spell out a God in the works of creation. South. To sit spelling and observing divine justice upon every accident. Milton.

Fig.: Abounding with difficulties or annoyances. The spiny deserts of scholastic philosophy. Bp. Warburton. Spiny lobster. (Zoöl.) Same as Rock lobster, under Rock. See also Lobster.

To be extended by drawing or beating; as, some metals spread with difficulty.

To sprinkle; to scatter. [Obs.] He would sowen some difficulty, Or springen cockle in our cleane corn. Chaucer.

Difficult of access; not easy reached; lofty; elevated; high. [Obs.] Chapman.

To remain where placed; to be fixed; to hold fast to any position so as to be moved with difficulty; to cling; to abide; to cleave; to be united closely. A friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Prov. xviii. 24. I am a kind of bur; I shall stick. Shak. If on your fame our sex a bolt has thrown, 'T will ever stick…

Firm; strong; violent; difficult to oppose; as, a stiff gale or breeze.

Difficult; distressful; straited. To make your strait circumstances yet straiter. Secker.

To press; to urge; to distress; to put to difficulties. [R.] Spenser.

To labor in pain or anguish; to be in agony; to labor in any kind of difficulty or distress. 'T is wisdom to beware, And better shun the bait than struggle in the snare. Dryden.