a never-ending cycle of activities and events (especially when they seem to have little purpose); "if we lose the election the whole legislative merry-go-round will have to start over"
the quality of being difficult; "they agreed about the difficulty of the climb"
a factor causing trouble in achieving a positive result or tending to produce a negative result; "serious difficulties were encountered in obtaining a pure reagent"
a condition or state of affairs almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome; "grappling with financial difficulties"