difficulty vs muddle

difficulty

noun
  • An awkward situation or quarrel. 

  • Physical danger from the environment, especially with risk of drowning 

  • An obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal. 

  • The state of being difficult, or hard to do. 

  • An objection. 

  • That which cannot be easily understood or believed. 

muddle

noun
  • A mixture; a confusion; a garble. 

  • A mixture of crushed ingredients, as prepared with a muddler. 

verb
  • To dabble in mud. 

  • To mash slightly for use in a cocktail. 

  • To think and act in a confused, aimless way. 

  • To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially. 

  • To mix together, to mix up; to confuse. 

  • To make turbid or muddy. 

  • To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or intoxicated. 

How often have the words difficulty and muddle occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )