predicament
noun
[ prɪˈdɪkəm(ə)nt ]
• a difficult, unpleasant, or embarrassing situation.
• "the club's financial predicament"
Similar:
difficult situation,
awkward situation,
mess,
difficulty,
problematic situation,
issue,
plight,
quandary,
trouble,
muddle,
mare's nest,
crisis,
hole,
fix,
jam,
sticky situation,
pickle,
scrape,
bind,
tight spot/corner,
spot,
corner,
dilemma,
hot/deep water,
kettle of fish,
how-do-you-do,
• (in Aristotelian logic) each of the ten ‘categories’, often listed as: substance or being, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, posture, having or possession, action, and passion.
Origin:
late Middle English (in predicament (sense 2)): from late Latin praedicamentum ‘something predicated’ (rendering Greek katēgoria ‘category’), from Latin praedicare (see predicate). From the sense ‘category’ arose the sense ‘state of being, condition’; hence ‘unpleasant situation’.
