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Difficult to please; delicate to fault; suited with difficulty; squeamish; as, a fastidious mind or ear; a fastidious appetite. Proud youth ! fastidious of the lower world. Young.

A position of difficulty or embarassment; predicament; dillema. [Colloq.] Is he not living, then No. is he dead, then No, nor dead either. Poor Aroar can not live, and can not die, -- so that he is in an almighty fix. De Quincey.

ies, those which can not be volatilized or separated by a common menstruum, without great difficulty, as gold, platinum, lime, etc. -- Fixed capital. See the Note under Capital, n., 4. -- Fixed fact, a well established fact. [Colloq.] -- Fixed light, one which emits constant beams; -- distinguished from a flashing, r…

ility to loosen it by cutting it with his sword. Hence, a Gordian knot is an inextricable difficulty; and to cut the Gordian knot is to remove a difficulty by bold and energetic measures.

bers; hence, against one's wishes or tastes; unwillingly; unpleasantly; reluctantly; with difficulty. Swift.Saintsbury.-- A grain of allowance, a slight indulgence or latitude a small allowance. -- Grain binder, an attachment to a harvester for binding the grain into sheaves. -- Grain colors, dyes made from the coccu…

To move with much difficulty or friction; to grate.

ften with reference to mutual relation and the best effect; to form an assemblage of. The difficulty lies in drawing and disposing, or, as the painters term it, in grouping such a multitude of different objects. Prior. Grouped columns (Arch.), three or moro columns placed upon the same pedestal.

With difficulty; as, the vehicle moves hard.

In a hard or difficult manner; with difficulty. Recovering hardly what he lost before. Dryden.

As if burdened with a great weight; slowly and laboriously; with difficulty; hence, in a slow, difficult, or suffering manner; sorrowfully. And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily. Ex. xiv. 25. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day Shak.

help on, to forward; to promote by aid. -- To help out, to aid, as in delivering from a difficulty, or to aid in completing a design or task. The god of learning and of light Would want a god himself to help him out. Swift. -- To help over, to enable to surmount; as, to help one over an obstacle. -- To help to, to s…

Difficulty; perplexity; embarrassment. Waterton.

he height of a wagon-wheel hub. -- Up to the hub, as far as possible in embarrassment or difficulty, or in business, like a wheel sunk in mire; deeply involved. [Colloq.]

which the chief symptoms are, a sense of dryness and construction in the throat, causing difficulty in deglutition, and a marked heightening of reflex excitability, producing convulsions whenever the patient attempts to swallow, or is disturbed in any way, as by the sight or sound of water; rabies; canine madness. [Wr…

The quality of being impossible; impracticability. They confound difficulty with impossibility. South.

asiness; disadvantage; anything that disturbs quiet, impedes prosperity, or increases the difficulty of action or success; as, one inconvenience of life is poverty. A place upon the top of Mount Athos above all clouds of rain, or other inconvenience. Sir W. Raleigh. Man is liable to a great many inconveniences. Tillots…

or disentangled; hopelessly intricate, confused, or obscure; as, an inextricable knot or difficulty; inextricable confusion. Lost in the wild, inextricable maze. Blackmore.

Incapability or difficulty of being fused, melted, or dissolved; as, the infusibility of carbon.

To recommend; to render easy or agreeable; -- followed by to. [Obs.] Dr. J. Scott. What difficulty would it [the love of Christ] not ingratiate to us Hammond.

Not to be solved or explained; insolvable; as, an insoluble doubt, question, or difficulty.