Q: I found this unusual use of “difficult” in an old account of a Scottish broadsword match: “both gentlemen displayed such equality of proficiency, that the Judges were difficulted to decide betwixt them.”
A: Unusual indeed, but not when The Sun, a now-defunct evening newspaper in London, published that report on the broadsword match in Edinburgh on Dec. 5, 1828.
As it turns out, the use of “difficult” as a verb first appeared in the mid-15th century and is still seen occasionally, though it’s now considered rare or obsolete.
The usage is derived from three sources: the adjective “difficult,” the Middle French verb difficulter (to make difficult), and the post-classical Latin difficultare (to make difficult or obstruct), according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
When the verb first appeared in late Middle English, it meant “to obscure the sense of; to make difficult to understand,” a meaning that’s now obsolete, the OED says. The present participle “difficultyng” is used in the dictionary’s earliest citation:
“Suche teching is forgid, feynyd and veyn curiosite, difficultyng, harding and derking goddis lawe” (“Such teaching is a forged, fiendish, and vain cleverness, difficulting, hardening and darkening God’s law”). From The Donet, a religious treatise written around 1445 by Reginald Pecock, Bishop of Chichester.
[The word “donet” in the title of Bishop Pecock’s tract comes from the name of Ælius Donatus, author of Ars Grammatica, a fourth-century introduction to Latin grammar. The now-obsolete term was used for a while to mean an introduction to any subject—in Pecock’s case, theology.]
In the early 17th century, the verb “difficult” took on the sense or “to make (an action or process) difficult; to hinder, impede,” a usage that the OED labels “now rare.”
The dictionary’s earliest citation is from a letter written Dec. 29, 1608, in which Sir Charles Cornwallis, the British ambassador in Spain, complains to the Lords of the Privy Council about his lack of access in Madrid compared to the openness shown to the Spanish ambassador in London:
“Your Lordships will not hold so great an inequallity sufferrable; that the King’s Ambassador there should not only have a free Correspondencye with his Master’s Subjects, but a contynuall Resort and Conference with those of his Majesties; then to me here, that one should be restrayned and the other difficulted.”
In the mid-17th century, the verb came to mean “to cause problems or difficulties for (a person, organization, etc.); to hamper, obstruct; (also) to perplex. Usually in passive.” The OED says the usage was frequently seen in Scottish English, but is “now rare.”
The dictionary’s first citation is from An History of the Civill Warres of England, Betweene the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke (1641), a translation by Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth, of a work by the Italian historian Giovanni Francesco Biondi:
“Being thus difficulted [Italian in tai difficultà], the defendants demanded a truce untill Saint Iohn Baptists-day.”
Finally, here are two 21st-century examples cited by the OED:
“The appearance of the optic disc varies widely among healthy individuals, difficulting the recognition of pathological changes.” From The Optic Nerve in Glaucoma (2006), by Remo Susanna Jr. and Felipe A. Medeiros. (We’ve expanded the citation.)
“It difficulted me greatly that I could think of no way to get Theo into the house.” From Florence and Giles (2010), a Gothic tale by the British novelist John Harding.
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