predicament

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one

   finds himself in a most awkward predicament

2. 2
   noun

   An unfortunate or trying position or condition.

   Culture, for me, is the effort to provide a coherent set of answers to the existential predicaments that confront all human beings in the passage of their life.

3. 3
   noun

   A definite class, state or condition.

4. 4
   noun

   That which is predicated; a category.

Etymology

From Middle English predicament, from Old French predicament, from Late Latin praedicāmentum (“that which is predicated, a predicament, category”).