N. smallness, littleness,
tenuity,
paucity, fewness, meanness, insignificance (unimportance) 643,
mediocrity,
moderation, small quantity,
modicum, trace,
hint, minimum, vanishing point, material point,
atom, particle, molecule,
corpuscle, point,
speck,
dot,
mote,
jot,
iota,
ace,
minutiae, details, look, thought, idea, soupcon,
dab,
dight,
whit,
tittle, shade, shadow,
spark,
scintilla,
gleam, touch, cast, grain,
scruple,
granule,
globule,
minim,
sup,
sip,
sop,
spice, drop,
droplet,
sprinkling,
dash,
morceau,
screed,
smack,
tinge,
tincture, inch,
patch,
scantling,
tatter,
cantlet,
flitter,
gobbet,
mite,
bit,
morsel,
crumb, seed,
fritter,
shive,
snip,
snippet,
snick,
snack,
snatch, slip,
scrag,
chip,
chipping,
shiver,
sliver,
driblet,
clipping, paring,
shaving, hair,
nutshell,
thimbleful,
spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful, fragment, fraction, drop in the ocean,
animalcule,
trifle, mere nothing, next to nothing, hardly anything, just enough to swear by, the shadow of a shade, finiteness, finite quantity
V. be small, lie in a nutshell, diminish, (contract) 195
Adj. small, little,
diminutive, minute, fine, inconsiderable,
paltry,
faint, slender, light, slight, scanty,
scant, limited,
meager,
sparing, few, low,
so-so, middling,
tolerable, no great shakes, below par, under par, below the mark, at a low ebb,
halfway, moderate, modest, tender,
subtle,
inappreciable,
evanescent,
infinitesimal,
homeopathic, very small,
atomic,
corpuscular,
microscopic, molecular, subatomic, mere, simple, sheer,
stark, bare, near run, dull, petty, shallow,
stolid, ungifted, unintelligent
Adv. to a small extent, on a small scale, a little bit, a wee bit, slightly,
imperceptibly,
miserably,
wretchedly, insufficiently, imperfectly,
faintly,
passably, pretty well, well enough, partially, in part, in a certain degree, to a certain degree, to a certain extent, comparatively, some, rather in some degree, in some measure, something, somewhat, simply, only, purely, merely, at least, at the least, at most, at the most, ever so little, as little as may be, tant soit peu, in ever so small a degree, thus far, pro tanto, within bounds, in a manner, after a fashion, so to speak, almost, nearly,
well-nigh, short of, not quite, all but, near upon, close upon, peu s'en faut, near the mark, within an ace of, within an inch of, on the brink of, scarcely,
hardly, barely, only just, no more than, about,
thereabouts, somewhere about, nearly, say, be the same, be little more or less, no ways, no way, no wise, not at all, not in the least, not a bit, not a bit of it, not a whit, not a jot, not a shadow, in no wise, in no respect, by no means, by no manner of means, on no account, at no hand
Phr. dare pondus idonea fumo, magno conatu magnas nugas, "small sands the mountain, moments make the year", quantity by comparison with a similar object
V. be rare
Adj. unfrequent, infrequent, rare, rare as a blue diamond, few,
scarce, almost unheard of,
unprecedented, which has not occurred within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, not within one's previous experience, not since adam, scarce as hen's teeth, one in a million, few and far between
Adv. seldom, rarely, scarcely, hardly, not often, not much, infrequently, unfrequently, unoften, scarcely, scarcely ever, hardly ever, once in a blue moon, once, once in a blue moon, once in a million years, once for all, once in a way, pro hac vice
Phr. ein mal kein mal
N. difficulty, hardness,
impracticability, tough work, hard work, uphill work, hard task, herculean task, augean task, task of sisyphus, sisyphean labor, tough job,
teaser,
rasper, dead lift,
dilemma,
embarrassment,
deadlock,
perplexity,
intricacy,
entanglement,
complexity, cross fire,
awkwardness, delicacy, ticklish card to play,
knot, gordian knot, dignus vindice nodus, net, meshes,
maze,
coil, crooked path, involvement, nice point, delicate point, subtle point, knotty point, vexed question, vexata quaestio,
poser,
puzzle,
paradox, hard nut to crack, nut to crack, bone to pick,
crux, pons asinorum, where the shoe pinches,
nonplus,
quandary, strait, pass,
pinch, pretty pass, stress,
brunt, critical situation,
crisis, trial,
rub,
emergency,
exigency,
scramble,
scrape,
hobble,
slough,
quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest, sea of troubles, peck of troubles, pretty kettle of fish,
pickle,
stew,
imbroglio,
mess,
ado, false position, set fast, stand,
standstill,
deadlock, dead set, fix, horns of a dilemma, cul de sac,
hitch, stumbling block,
crab,
curmudgeon V. be difficult, run one hard, go against the grain, try one's patience, put one out, put to one's shifts, put to one's wit's end, go hard with one, try one,
pose,
perplex, bother,
nonplus, gravel, bring to a deadlock, be impossible, be in the way of, meet with difficulties, labor under difficulties, get into difficulties, plunge into difficulties, struggle with difficulties, contend with difficulties, grapple with difficulties, labor under a disadvantage, be in difficulty, fish in troubled waters, buffet the waves, swim against the stream, scud under bare poles, have much ado with, have a hard time of it, come to the push, come to the pinch, bear the brunt, grope in the dark, lose one's way, weave a tangled web, walk among eggs, get into a scrape, bring a hornet's nest about one's ears, be put to one's shifts,
flounder,
boggle, struggle, not know which way to turn, perdre son latin, stick at, stick in the mud, stick fast, come to a stand, come to a standstill, come to a deadlock, hold the wolf by the ears, hold the tiger by the tail, render difficult,
enmesh,
encumber,
embarrass,
ravel,
entangle, put a spoke in the wheel, lead a pretty dance
Adj. difficult, not easy, hard,
tough,
troublesome,
toilsome,
irksome,
operose, laborious,
onerous,
arduous,
herculean, formidable, sooner said than done, more easily said than done, easier said than done, difficult to deal with, hard to deal with,
ill-conditioned,
crabbed,
crabby, not to be handled with kid gloves, not made with rose water,
awkward,
unwieldy,
unmanageable, intractable,
stubborn,
perverse,
refractory,
plaguy, trying,
thorny,
rugged,
knotted,
knotty, invious|, pathless,
trackless,
labyrinthine,
intricate, complicated, impracticable, not feasible,
desperate,
embarrassing,
perplexing, delicate,
ticklish, critical, beset with difficulties, full of difficulties, surrounded by difficulties, entangled by difficulties, encompassed with difficulties, under a difficulty, in a box, in difficulty, in hot water, in the suds, in a cleft stick, in a fix, in the wrong box, in a scrape, in deep water, in a fine pickle, in extremis, between two stools, between scylla and charybdis, surrounded by shoals, surrounded by breakers, surrounded by quicksands, at cross purposes, not out of the wood, reduced to straits, hard pressed, sorely pressed, run hard,
pinched, put to it,
straitened, hard up, hard put to it, hard set, put to one's shifts,
puzzled, at a loss,
&c (uncertain) 475, at the end of one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, at a standstill, graveled,
nonplused,
nonplussed,
stranded,
aground, stuck fast, set fast, up a tree, at bay, aux abois, driven into a corner, driven from pillar to post, driven to extremity, driven to one's wit's end, driven to the wall, au bout de son latin, out of one's depth, thrown out, accomplished with difficulty,
hard-fought, hard-earned
Adv. with difficulty, with much ado, barely,
hardly,
uphill, against the stream, against the grain, d rebours, invita minerva, in the teeth of, at a pinch, upon a pinch, at long odds, against long odds
Phr. "ay there's the rub", hic labor hoc opus, things are come to a pretty pass, ab inconvenienti, ad astra per aspera, acun chemin de fleurs ne conduit a la gloire
