Stringency and Difficulty

noun

• A state occasioned by scarcity of money and a shortage of credit.
  • synonyms: tightness
• Conscientious attention to rules and details.
  • synonyms: strictness

noun

• An effort that is inconvenient.
  • usage: "I went to a lot of trouble"; "he won without any trouble"; "had difficulty walking"; "finished the test only with great difficulty"
  • synonyms: trouble
• A factor causing trouble in achieving a positive result or tending to produce a negative result.
  • usage: "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.
  • usage: "grappling with financial difficulties"
• The quality of being difficult.
  • usage: "they agreed about the difficulty of the climb"
  • synonyms: difficultness

• (n.) Embarrassment of affairs, especially financial affairs; -- usually in the plural; as, to be in difficulties.
• (n.) A controversy; a falling out; a disagreement; an objection; a cavil.
• (n.) Something difficult; a thing hard to do or to understand; that which occasions labor or perplexity, and requires skill and perseverance to overcome, solve or achieve; a hard enterprise; an obstacle; an impediment; as, the difficulties of a science; difficulties in theology.
• (n.) The state of being difficult or hard to do; hardness; arduousness; -- opposed to easiness or facility; as, the difficulty of a task or enterprise; a work of difficulty.