Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A question to be considered, solved, or answered.
  • noun A situation, matter, or person that is hard to deal with or understand.
  • noun A personal matter that causes one difficulty or needs to be dealt with.
  • noun A misgiving, objection, or complaint.
  • adjective Difficult to deal with or control.
  • adjective Dealing with a moral or social problem.
  • idiom (no problem) Used to express confirmation of or compliance with a request.
  • idiom (no problem) Used to acknowledge an expression of gratitude.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A question proposed for decision or discussion; a matter for examination; any question involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty; also, a question with a discussion of it.
  • noun Specifically In geometry, a proposition requiring some operation to be performed or construction to be executed, as to bisect a line, and the like.
  • noun In English universities, a public disputation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A question proposed for solution; a matter stated for examination or proof; hence, a matter difficult of solution or settlement; a doubtful case; a question involving doubt.
  • noun (Math.) Anything which is required to be done; as, in geometry, to bisect a line, to draw a perpendicular; or, in algebra, to find an unknown quantity.
  • noun (Geom.) a problem that can be solved by the use of the rule and compass.
  • noun (Geom.) a problem requiring in its geometric solution the use of a conic section or higher curve.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A difficulty that has to be resolved or dealt with.
  • noun A question to be answered, schoolwork exercise.
  • noun A puzzling circumstance.
  • adjective Difficult to train or guide; unruly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a source of difficulty
  • noun a question raised for consideration or solution
  • noun a state of difficulty that needs to be resolved

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English probleme, from Old French, from Latin problēma, problēmat-, from Greek, from proballein, to throw before, put forward : pro-, before; see pro– + ballein, blē-, to throw; see gwelə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin problema, from Ancient Greek πρόβλημα (problema, "anything thrown forward, hindrance, obstacle, anything projecting, a headland, promontory"), from προβάλλω (proballo, "to throw or lay something in front of someone, to put forward"), from προ- (pro-, "in front of") + βάλλω (ballo, "to throw, to cast, to hurl").

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Examples

  • The most influential arguments against the view that there is a genuine problem of transworld identity (or ˜problem of transworld identification™, to use Kripke's preferred terminology) are probably those presented by Plantinga (1973, 1974) and Kripke (1980).

    Transworld Identity Mackie, Penelope 2006

  • VIEW FAVORITES yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'Bush and Blair, Joined at the Hip, Sinking Together'; yahooBuzzArticleSummary = '"Never in modern history has the solution to one problem resulted in the creation of so many larger problems, especially since the initial \'problem\', Saddam Hussein\'s weapons of mass destruction, turned out to be non-existent, "writes Rupert Cornwell in London\'s The Independent. '

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: Bush and Blair, Joined at the Hip, Sinking Together 2006

  • One metaphysical problem concerns how change is possible (this has recently become known as the ˜problem of temporary intrinsics™).

    Temporal Parts Hawley, Katherine 2004

  • That there is no solution to the race problem is a statement heard so often in America that it has become almost proverbial; that the solution is simple if our citizens would approach the problem fairly is an observation made less often; but that _there is no problem_ would seem to be either the flippant remark of one who dabbles in sociology or the profound utterance of a new seer.

    The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 Various

  • The negro problem is one of many race problems which the United States has, but because it is the most pressing of all of our race problems it is frequently spoken of as _the race problem_.

    Sociology and Modern Social Problems 1909

  • Although there would have been plenty of muttering, nothing would have been done to interfere with the solution of the problem which I had devised, _until the solution was accomplished and the problem ceased to be a problem_.

    Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography Theodore Roosevelt 1888

  • _What is the precise constitution of the Subliminal_ -- such is the problem which deserves to figure in our Science hereafter as the _problem of

    Memories and Studies William James 1876

  • It is well known to most of my readers that woman is a problem; but it may not be as well known that now-a-days, she is a _mathematical problem_.

    Newton Forster The Merchant Service Frederick Marryat 1820

  • Just as astronomy, at bottom, is a mechanical problem, and physiology, likewise, a chemical problem, so is history, at bottom, a _problem of psychology_.

    Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations Edmund Spenser 1730

  • * This isn't a linux networking problem, per se, but it is a networking problem*

    LinuxQuestions.org 2010

  • They showed this by proving that classical physics can’t erase the sign problem, a particular quirk of quantum Monte Carlo simulations of gravitational anomalies (like warped spacetime, except in this case the researchers used an analogue from condensed matter physics).

    Physicists Confirm That We're Not Living In a Computer Simulation Allison Eck 2017

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