the devil

1. 1.

   something difficult or awkward to do or deal with

   “it will be the devil to solve”

   Broadertrouble

Questions about the devil

What does the devil mean?

the devil means "something difficult or awkward to do or deal with".

Is the devil a common word?

the devil is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.