| 释义 |
▪ I. hard, a. (n.)|hɑːd|
Forms: 1 heard, 2–4 herd, (3 ard, Orm. harrd), 3–7 harde, (6 heard, herde), 4– hard.
[A Common Teut. adj.: OE. heard = OFris. herd, OS. hard (MDu. hart(d), MLG. hard, harde, Du., LG. hard), OHG. hart, harti, hęrti (MHG. hart, herte, Ger. hart), ON. harðr (Sw. hård, Da. haard), Goth. hardus:—OTeut. *hardús, corresp. to pre-Teut. *kartús = Gr. κρατύς strong, powerful. Like other adjs. in -us, hardus became in WGer. partly a jo-stem hardja-, whence OHG. harti, hęrti; but there is no trace of this in OS. and OE.]
A. adj.
I. Passively hard: resisting force, pressure, or effort of some kind.
1. a. A primary adjective expressing consistency of matter: That does not yield to blows or pressure; not easily penetrated or separated into particles; firm and resisting to the touch; solid, compact in substance and texture. The opposite of soft.
Beowulf (Z.) 2509 Billes ecᵹ, hond and heard sweord. 971Blickl. Hom 221 Mid hærenum hræᵹle swiþe heardum & unwinsumum. c1000Sax. Leechd. II. 182 Wiþ heardum swile þæs maᵹan. c1175Lamb. Hom. 129 Weter of þan herda flinte. a1300Cursor M. 6390 (Gött.) Of þe hard stan. c1375Sc. Leg. Saints, Machor 707 Ȝoure hartis ar herd as flynt. c1400Mandeville (Roxb.) xvii. 79 Þai er so hard þat þare may na metell pulisch þam. c1440Promp. Parv. 227/1 Harde yn towchynge, or felynge..durus. 1594T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. 148 The substance thereof is thicke, and harder then any other skinne, and therefore it is called the harde mother. 1607E. Topsell Hist. Foure-footed Beastes 188 Prescribing him a diet; which is to drink water, and to eat hard Egs. 1638Sir T. Herbert Trav. (ed. 2) 240 Sallads, acharrs, and hard egs. 1657R. Ligon Barbadoes (1673) 72 Leaves..extreamly stiff and hard. 1674tr. Scheffer's Lapland 12 The hair of both Sexes is generally black and hard. 1690Locke Hum. Und. ii. v. (1695) 54 That being generally call'd hard by us, which will put us to Pain, sooner than change Figure by the pressure of any part of our Bodies; and that, on the contrary, soft, which changes the Situation of its parts upon an easie and unpainful touch. 1764Reid Inquiry v. §2 Wks. I. 120/1 When the parts of a body adhere so firmly that it cannot easily be made to change its figure, we call it hard. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. ii. 10 If it did not yield in the slightest degree it would be perfectly hard. 1860Pusey Min. Proph. 541 Harder than adamant. 1962L. Deighton Ipcress File xxi. 143, I was loaded with anchovy,..hard egg and salmon.
†b. Undigested (in the stomach). Obs.
1687R. L'Estrange Answ. Diss. 31 Neither is it..Only the bespoken Thanks, at last, that lyes so Hard in our Author's Stomach. 1696Tryon Misc. iii. 88 Suppers lie hard in the Stomach.
c. hard fist, an ungloved fist. Also attrib.
1887Daily News 27 Jan. 5/5 Time was when the opening night was a velvet-glove contest. The hard-fist battle was postponed.
d. hard iron, hard lead: see quots.
1881Maxwell Electr. & Magn. II. 44 Iron which retains its magnetic properties when removed from the magnetic field is called Hard iron. 1881Raymond Mining Gloss., Hard lead, lead containing certain impurities, principally antimony.
e. Of a lawn tennis court: made of asphalt or other hard material, as distinguished from a grass court.
1889H. W. W. Wilberforce Lawn Tennis v. 19 Most people on a dry ground or a ‘hard’ court use brown leather or buck-skin shoes with thick, smooth, red rubber soles. 1909Westm. Gaz. 30 Mar. 12/3 It is possible to place too much significance on hard-court results, grass conditions in England being so materially different. 1959Daily Tel. 1 June 1/4 The French hard-court championships. 1973G. Mitchell Murder of Busy Lizzie i. 10 A sunken garden, a hard tennis court, miniature golf.
f. Of silk: retaining its natural gum. Also applied to a worker in hard silk.
a1877Knight Dict. Mech. 2180/2. 1878 A. Barlow Hist. Weaving 395 Before the gum has been boiled off the silk it is said to be hard silk. 1921Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §399 Hard hand (silk); general term for any worker engaged in treating silk while still hard, i.e., before it is degummed.
g. Of porcelain: made of hard paste; hard paste: see paste n. 3 b, porcelain 1 note.
1814Rees Cycl. XXVIII. Dd 4/2 Porcelain made of the best proportions of these two substances..is called hard porcelain. 1832G. R. Porter Treat. Porcelain & Glass iii. 43 This paste is not so cohesive or viscous as that which forms hard porcelain. 1848H. R. Forster Stowe Catal. 6 The celebrated Porcelain of Dresden, or more properly, Meissen,..is the most choice..of German fabrication. The material is termed ‘hard paste’. 1869Lady C. Schreiber Jrnl. (1911) I. 44 A bird on a raised sort of foot, possibly hard paste English. 1879Hard-paste [see paste n. 3 b]. 1881Harper's Mag. Feb. 368/1 There are now hard or true porcelain manufactories in New York. 1885Encycl. Brit. XIX. 642/1 Bristol porcelain is of interest as being the first hard natural porcelain made in England. 1909Chambers's Jrnl. Nov. 751/1 China manufactured in the eighteenth century was of two kinds—namely, ‘hard’ paste or true porcelain, and ‘soft’ paste or artificial china. 1968Canad. Antiques Collector Aug. 27/1 Hard-Paste porcelain is unaffected by the file where it is ‘free from the glaze’. 1968J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts 234 Hard porcelain, already glazed, is fired at 1300°–1400°C., causing complete fusion.
h. In many specific collocations, e.g. hard brass, hard cheese, hard coke, hard cure, hard glaze, hard lights, hard mixture, hard pavior, hard pitch, hard solder, hard solderer, hard soldering, hard stock. Also hard coal = anthracite; hard rubber = ebonite, vulcanite 2; hard soap, see soap n. 2.
1873E. Spon Workshop Rec. 1st Ser. 10 Hard Brass, for Casting.—25 parts copper, 2 zinc, 4.5 tin. 1888Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin., Hard Brass.—(1) Brass which has not been annealed after drawing or rolling... (2) Hammered brass, and brass which contains a large proportion of tin. 1902Encycl. Brit. XXVII. 355/1 A perfect Leicester is perhaps the most attractive of all the so-called ‘hard’ cheese. 1957‘K. Curragh’ Lady into Cook 68 Cheese Soufflé{ddd}4 tablespoons grated cheese (Parmesan or any hard cheese).
1846N.Y. Morning Express 2 Oct. 4/2 Hard Coal is a little higher owing to the increased traffic and freight. 1960Gloss. Coal Terms (B.S.I.) 8 Hard coal, all coal of higher rank than lignite. In the U.S.A. the term is restricted to anthracite. 1979Sci. Amer. Jan. 28/3 Hard coal (anthracite and the various grades of bituminous coal) and soft coal (brown coal and lignite).
1888Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin., Hard coke, oven coke. 1907Hard cure [see cure n.1 11]. 1909Westm. Gaz. 9 Nov. 12/1 Fine Hard Cure Para Rubber. 1962J. T. Marsh Self-Smoothing Fabrics vi. 80 Another feature of the treatment with triazones is the necessity for a ‘hard cure’, e.g. for 2 to 3 min. at 150°C or 1 to 2 min. at 165°C.
1814Rees Cycl. XXVIII. Ee 2/2 The hard and less fusible glaze of the hard porcelain, which is mostly feldspar. 1839Ure Dict. Arts II. 1016 The hard glaze of pipeclay ware. 1930Sel. Gloss. Motion Pict. Techn. (Acad. Motion Pict., Hollywood), Hard lights. (1) Arc lights. (2) Illumination from arcs, in general. Refers to the sharp shadows cast.
1909Practitioner Feb. 266 The mixture of the cocculus with beer..was kept by brewers' druggists, and sold to brewers under the name of ‘multum’ or ‘hard mixture’.
1904Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 280/1 Hard paviors.., malm bricks, over-burnt and slightly blemished in colour, used for paving, coping, etc.
1879Encycl. Brit. X. 100/1 If the heat is forced, and the distillation [sc. of coal-tar] continued, a large amount of ‘heavy’ or ‘dead oils’ is obtained, and the mass left in the still is ‘hard pitch’.
1860Hard rubber [see vulcanite 2].
1846Pat. Jrnl. 1 Aug. 174/2 Hard solder. Melt together two pounds of copper and one pound of tin. 1873E. Spon Workshop Rec. 1st Ser. 364, 2 parts of good silver and 1 of ordinary brass pins, well melted, is a good, useful jewellers' hard solder. a1877Knight Dict. Mech. II. 1061/2 Hard solder, the solder used for uniting the more infusible metals. Spelter solder and silver solder are the two principal varieties. 1879Spon's Encycl. Industr. Arts i. 324 Alloys employed for joining metals together are termed ‘solders’ and they are commonly divided into two classes: hard and soft solders. 1902Young Engineer I. 104 The art of soldering may be divided into two distinct classes—soft soldering,..and hard soldering, in which the solders are composed of gold, silver, copper, zinc, or brass. 1921Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §262 Brazer, brazier; hard solderer; joins together parts of steel, iron, brass or copper articles by brazing or hard soldering.
1836Penny Cycl. V. 409/1 The bricks are now separated for sale; the hard sound stocks are the best, and are worth from 1l. 10s. to 2l. a thousand. 1879Notes Building Constr. iii. 105 Hard Stocks are overburnt bricks, sound, but considerably blemished both in form and colour. 1904Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 69/2 Those [bricks] which are less overburnt are termed ‘hard stock’, and are useful for many building purposes.
2. Of money: In specie as opposed to paper currency. See also quot. 1882.
1706Farquhar Recruiting Officer iv. iii, Your mother has a hundred pound in hard money, lying..in the hands of a mercer. 1779A. Adams in J. Q. Adams' Fam. Lett. (1876) 365 Corn is sold at four dollars, hard money, per bushel. 1825Bentham Ration. Rew. 154 Husbandmen, like other labourers, are paid in hard money by the week. 1830Galt Lawrie T. v. viii. (1849) 230 We were to get hard cash to meet a run. 1878N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 157 The nomination of Governor Tilden, upon a hard-money resumption platform. 1882Bithell Counting-ho. Dict., Hard cash, a term used to distinguish metallic money, from..paper money... Often popularly used to denote bank notes, and other documents of undoubted value, in contradistinction to mere book debts, or commercial rights.
3. Said of the pulse when the blood-tension is high, so that the artery feels firm and not easy to be compressed.
1727–52Chambers Cycl. s.v. Pulse, A hard Pulse signifies 1. That the membrane of the artery is drier than ordinary..3. That the arteries are full [etc.]. 1803Med. Jrnl. IX. 508 A full if not a hard pulse. 1846J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) I. 440 The pulse..is hard and full—not weak and oppressed.
4. a. Not easy to wear out or cause to give way; capable of great physical endurance and exertion; formerly, esp., hardy and bold in fight. Now chiefly in sense approaching 1.
Beowulf (Z.) 342 Wlanc wedera leod word æfter spræc heard under helme. c1200Ormin 1596 And ȝiff þin heorrte iss harrd and starrc, And stedefasst o Criste. c1205Lay. 18958 Brutael þat is a cniht swiðe herd. c1380Sir Ferumb. 808 Fir[umbras] was hard, & suffrede wel. c1400Mandeville (1839) xxi. 253 Þei ben full harde folk and moche peyne and wo mow suffren. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. i. (1586) 13 b, A hard fellowe, brought up from his childehood to labour. 1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 119 Yet is the black Hound harder and better able to endure cold, then the other which is white. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. i. 95 Men, a hard laborious Kind. 1857G. Lawrence Guy Liv. 65 (Hoppe) [The horses] are both in hard condition, so it [a race] can come off in ten days. 1885Times 11 Feb. 8/1 The men..look as hard as nails and fit for anything.
†b. Firm, steadfast, unyielding. lit. and fig. Obs.
1340Hampole Pr. Consc. 662 A man es a tre, þat standes noght harde, Of whilk þe crop es turned donward. a1661Fuller Worthies (1840) III. 174 His name in Saxon soundeth a pearl, to which he answered in the preciousness of his disposition, clear and hard.
†c. Inured, hardened, obdurate. Obs.
1606Shakes. Ant. & Cl. iii. xiii. 111 When we in our viciousnesse grow hard. 1607― Timon iv. iii. 269 Thy Nature, did commence in sufferance, Time Hath made thee hard in't.
5. a. Difficult to do or accomplish; not easy; full of obstacles; laborious, fatiguing, troublesome.
a1340Hampole Psalter vi. 4 Ful hard it is to be turnyd enterly til þe bryghthed and þe pees of godis lyght. c1440Promp. Parv. 227/1 Harde yn knowynge, or warkynge, difficilis. 1559W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 97 It is as harde, and laborus, to get the Longitude. 1611Bible Transl. Pref. 2 So hard a thing it is to please all. 1653Walton Angler ii. 60, I see now it is a harder matter to catch a Trout then a Chub. 1711Steele Spect. No. 36 ⁋8 How hard a thing it is for those to keep Silence who have the Use of Speech. 1876Mozley Univ. Serm. iv. 90 Often..what we must do as simply right..is just the hardest thing to do.
b. Of the object of an action. Const. inf., or of, in, with n. expressing the action.
c1200Ormin 6326 And tatt iss swiþe strang and harrd To forþenn her onn eorþe. a1300Cursor M. 16992 (Gött). His pine was hardir [Cott. herder] for to drei. a1420Hoccleve De Reg. Princ. 825 But paiement is harde to gete now adayes. 1513More in Grafton Chron. (1568) II. 767 Hard it is to be wrested out. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iii. (1586) 143 Other remedies more harde to bee com by. 1599H. Buttes Dyets drie Dinner E b, Chestnuts..are hard of digestion. 1653Walton Angler viii. 168 He is a very subtle fish and hard to be caught. 1768Sterne Sent. Journ. (1778) II. 112 (Case of Consc.), I was hard to please. 1833H. Martineau Tale of Tyne iii. 64 It is a hard thing to manage. 1873Burton Hist. Scot. V. lxii. 382 She was hard to be entreated in this affair.
c. Of the subject of an action: Not easily able or capable; having difficulty in doing something. Const. inf., or of with n. denoting action or faculty. Obs. exc. in hard of hearing.
c1300Cursor M. 9326 Men sua herd of vnder-stand. a1400Serm. agst. Miracle-plays in Rel. Ant. II. 50 Yvil and hard of bileve. a1533Ld. Berners Huon cxxvi. 464 We ar hard of byleue that this shall be. 1564Child Marriages, etc. (E.E.T.S.) 134 The testatrixe was hard of hearinge. 1579–80North Plutarch (1612) 179 Of slow capacitie, and hard to learn and conceive. 1726–7Swift Gulliver iii. x, He..found the natives..very hard to believe that the fact was possible. 1858Dickens Lett. (1880) II. 55, I have been very hard to sleep too, and last night I was all but sleepless. 1861― Gt. Expect. xxxvii, I am hard of hearing. 1871B. Taylor Faust (1875) II. ii. iii. 148 Wise words in hard ears are but lifeless lore. 1950Lancet 11 Nov. 532/2 Practical courses..on audiometry and hearing-aids, hard-of-hearing children, [etc.]. 1968Brit. Med. Bull. XXIV. 256/2 There may be a real problem in distinguishing the hard of hearing from those with organic intellectual impairment or autism.
d. (to do something) the hard way: (to do it) by one's own unaided efforts, through bitter experience, or by the most difficult method.
1931D. Runyon Guys & Dolls (1932) xiii. 276 ‘Charley,’ he says, ‘do you make it the hard way?’ 1938Collier's 2 Apr. 16 (title) The hard way. 1945N. L. McClung Stream runs Fast ix. 80 You learned everything the hard way. 1951‘N. Shute’ Round Bend 1, I came into aviation the hard way. 1954M. Croft Spare Rod i. ii. 12 I'm starting you off the hard way. 1958Observer 26 Jan. 15/8 Making a movie the hard way spiritually and intellectually is the thing that really matters. 1958Listener 28 Aug. 292/1 Unqualified men who come up what used to be called ‘the hard way’. 1959Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Dec. 701/4 The Japanese failed to recognize it in the 1930s, and learnt it the hard way. 1971D. Lees Rainbow Conspiracy ix. 135 In the end I nearly found the reservoir the hard way.
6. a. Difficult to penetrate with the understanding; not easy to understand or explain.
[1382Wyclif 2 Pet. iii. 16 Epistlis..in whiche ben summe harde thinges in vndirstondinge.] c1450tr. De Imitatione iii. xlviii. 118 Knouleche of many harde questiouns. 1535Coverdale Ps. lxxii[i]. 16 Then thought I to vnderstonde this, but it was to harde for me. 1663F. Hawkins Youth's Behav. 73 Dictionary..a Lexicon, a Book wherein hard words and names are mentioned and unfolded. 1720Swift Lett. Yng. Clergym. Wks. 1841 II. 201 Obscure terms, which by the women are called hard words. 1888Burgon Lives 12 Gd. Men II. xii. 364 To ask hard questions.
b. hard word, used dial. in various senses, e.g. pass-word, abuse, scandal, marriage proposal, refusal. Phr. to put the hard word on (someone) Austral. and N.Z. slang, to ask for a favour or a loan, esp. to ask a woman for her favours.
1831S. Lover Legends & Stories of Ireland 1st Ser. p. xxiii, Hard word, hint. 1843W. Carleton Traits & Stories Irish Peasantry I. 78 So I gives Jack the hard word [sc. pass-word]. 1891B. Stoker Snake's Pass xvi, He would send the hard word round the country about me and my leman. 1899Somerville & ‘Ross’ Exper. Irish R.M. vi. 123, I had said what is called in Ireland ‘the hard word’ [sc. marriage proposal]. 1905Eng. Dial. Dict. III. 63/1 Ah assed him for a shillin', an' he gev mi t'hard-word.
1919W. H. Downing Digger Dial. 28 Hard word, an outrageous demand. (Put the hard word on.) 1927J. Devanny Old Savage 144 He thinks she is putting the ‘hard word’ on him. 1943Coast to Coast 1942 215 A tradesman notorious for putting the hard word on his typists. 1947I. Douglas Opportunity in Australia 89 Put the hard word on, to cadge for a loan or favour. 1959Baker Drum iv. 38 Establishing a suitable vantage point to ‘put the hard word on’ her. 1960D. Lockwood Fair Dinkum ii. 11 He didn't put the hard word on me once, and my credit is still good. 1969N.Z. News 28 May 1/1 (headline) Pilots put hard word on airline. 1970N.Z. Listener 21 Dec. 8/3 ‘Don't you think hitching's a little dangerous for females?’ ‘Well, some sheilas I know have had the hard word put on them.’
7. Difficult to deal with, manage, control, or resist. † too hard for, too much for, more than (one) can manage. hard case, a difficult case to treat or deal with; a person that cannot be reclaimed, a hardened criminal, a ‘bad lot’. orig. U.S. In Australia and New Zealand, an amusing or eccentric but adventurous person, a ‘character’; also called hard doer (see doer 5), hard shot, hard thing. See also sense 11 below.
1588Shakes. L.L.L. ii. i. 258 Boy. What then, do you see? Lad. 2. I, our way to be gone. Boy. You are too hard for me. 1605Verstegan Dec. Intell. ii. (1628) 31 The Hollander was too hard for the Frenchman, and threw him downe. 1726G. Shelvocke Voy. round World (1757) 330 If we found the enemy too hard for us. 1750Chesterfield Lett. (1792) III. ccxl. 101 A man who is master of his matter will with inferior parts be too hard..for a man of better parts who knows his subject but superficially. 1836W. T. Porter Quarter Race Kentucky (1854) 38 A ‘hard case’ called Emanuel Allen. 1842Life in West 323 A canoe full of ‘hard cases’ (vagabonds) had passed up the river. 1848G. F. Ruxton Life in Far West 71 (Farmer) La Bonte had lost all traces of civilised humanity, and might justly claim to be considered as hard a case as any of the mountaineers then present. a1891Stevenson (Dixon), He was a fellow-clerk of mine, and a hard case. 1920Punch 7 Apr. 266/1 The hard⁓case mates a-bawlin'. 1928Sunday Express 8 Jan. 4 With memories that go back to the days of ‘cracker-hash’, ‘lobscouse’, and hard-case, blue-nose, Nova Scotia mates. 1928Sunday Dispatch 29 July 2 Half a dozen particularly hard-case units of the Flying Squad. a1936Kipling Something of Myself (1937) ii. 22 It [sc. a school]..had been made up..by drafts from Haileybury..and, I think, a percentage of ‘hard cases’ from other schools.
1896H. Lawson In Days when World was Wide (1900) 197 Cause of half the fun that's started—‘Hard⁓case’ Dan—Isn't like a broken-hearted, Ruined man. 1896― While Billy Boils in Wks. (1948) 54 Steelman was a hard case... There was no shaking off Steelman. 1900― Over Sliprails in Ibid. 273 After dinner a humorous old hard case mysteriously took us aside. 1918Chrons. N.Z.E.F. 7 June 204 Without a smoke he was a hard thing. 1938‘R. Hyde’ Nor Years Condemn ix. 184 Fred's a hard shot. 1940F. Sargeson Man & Wife (1944) 64 He was the hardest case bloke you ever came across. 1943― in Penguin New Writing XVII. 66 He looked a bit of a hard-shot. 1950‘A. P. Gaskell’ in Landfall IV. 18 Cliff was a hard case.
b. Of facts: incapable of being denied or explained away, ‘stubborn’.
1887Graphic 29 Jan. 123/1 Hard Facts. 1906Daily Chron. 11 Apr. 3/4 A few more hard-fact letters and less of this soft imagining might have made the body of the book as interesting as the appendix. 1929Chesterton Poet & Lunatic iv, Thank God for hard stones; thank God for hard facts. 1956A. H. Compton Atomic Quest 311 The hard fact is that war, like business, reduces to a question of gain versus cost. 1973Daily Tel. 8 May 7/2 We have been unable to substantiate the allegations. We have few hard facts to go on but are continuing our investigations.
c. Of news or information: factual, real, objective, reliable, substantiated.
1938E. Waugh Scoop ii. i. 117 There isn't any hard news. 1948Newsweek 16 Aug. 51/1 The bulk of the broadcast time is given over to so-called ‘hard news’—that is, straight newscasts of what is going on in the world and in the United States. 1956A. J. Ayer Probl. of Knowl. iii. 92 Those who have sought to erect an edifice of knowledge on the basis of what Bertrand Russell..has called ‘hard data’, have commonly agreed that such data were yielded by sense-perception. 1958Listener 16 Aug. 239/2 This would yield some interesting and some relatively ‘hard’ evidence. 1958Economist 13 Sept. 815/2 Two hard items for the agenda. 1959Duke of Bedford Silver-Plated Spoon ix. 185 Newspapers do not encourage telephone calls to the other side of the world unless they are in possession of pretty hard information. 1963Ann. Reg. 1962 520 Upon receiving the first preliminary hard information of this nature..I directed that our surveillance be stepped up.
8. a. Of a nature or character not easily impressed or moved; obdurate; unfeeling, callous; hard-hearted.
Beowulf (Z.) 166 Atol angengea..heardra hynða. 971Blickl. Hom. 57 Maniᵹe men beoð heardre heortan. c1250Gen. & Ex. 3061 Ðis weder is softe, And ðis king hard, And brekeð him eft ðat forward. c1386Chaucer Man of Law's T. 759 Why wil thyn harde fader han thee split? c1440Promp. Parv. 227/2 Harde demare, or domys mann wytheowte mercy. 1568Grafton Chron. II. 282 There was not so heard a hart, if they had seene them but would have had pittie upon them. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 466 So wretched is thy Son, so hard a Mother thou. 1822Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Detached Th. on Bks., With his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while. 1864Tennyson Grandmother 17 You think I am hard and cold.
†b. to die hard: to die obdurate or impenitent. Obs. See also hard adv. 3, die v.1 3.
1709Tatler No. 63 ⁋5 Most Writers..seem to place a peculiar Vanity in dying hard. 1712Swift Let. Dr. King 8 Dec. (T.), He died hard, as their term of art is here, to express the woeful state of men, who discover no religion at their death. 1730–46Thomson Autumn 490 Who saw the villain..dying hard, Without complaint. 1796Grose Dict. Vulgar T. s.v. Dye hard or game, To dye hard, is to shew no signs of fear or contrition at the gallows.
9. Not easily moved to part with money; stingy, niggardly, ‘close’. Cf. hard-fisted.
1362Langl. P. Pl. A. i. 165. 1393 Ibid. C. ii. 188 Aren none hardur ne hongryour þan men of holy churche, Auerouse & euil-willed whanne thei ben auaunsed. 1530Palsgr. 314/2 Harde, as one that is a nygarde, chiche. 1568Grafton Chron. II. 49 He was free and liberall to straungers, and heard and holdyng from his familiers and servaunts. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 282 Many wondered that a man..could be so hard and niggardly in all pecuniary dealings.
10. Not easily moved by sentiment; of a practical, shrewdly intelligent character. See also hardhead.
1747Col. Rec. Pennsylv. V. 147 The French have hard heads. 1824R. B. Peake Americans Abroad i. i. (Farmer), We Americans have got hard heads. 1853Lytton My Novel ii. iv, My books don't tell me that it is a good heart that gets on in the world: it is a hard head.
II. Actively hard: pressing severely; severe.
11. a. Difficult to bear or endure; not easy to suffer, put up with, or consent to; pressing severely; severe, rigorous, oppressive, cruel. hard case: applied to a sailing-ship on which conditions are rough; hard lines: see line n.2 6; hard luck: see luck n. 1; also attrib.; hard-lying money: corruption of hard line money (see line n.2 6); hence hard lyer; (joc.) hard-liar.
971Blickl. Hom. 49 Þæt he þonne..onfo þæs heardestan þeowdomes. Ibid. 95 Þonne biþ þam eft heard dom ᵹeteod. c1175Lamb. Hom. 49 Þurh þreo herde weies. c1200Ormin 1442 Harrd and hefiȝ pine inoh. 1297R. Glouc. (1724) 213 In such ard cas as hym vel. 1340Hampole Pr. Consc. 4539 And do þam to hard dede at þe last. c1477Caxton Jason 77 b, [He] had grete sorow in his corage whan he was aduertised of these harde tydinges. 1576Fleming Panopl. Epist. 39 It was his hard lucke and curssed chaunce. 1600J. Pory tr. Leo's Africa ii. 102 Fearing hard measure, if they should be carried unto the king. 1751Jortin Serm. (1771) II. ii. 29 We think our position particularly hard. 1825Hone Every-day Bk. I. 218 It is a little hard, indeed, that I should have these fine compliments and severe reproaches at the same time. 1893F. C. Selous Trav. S.E. Africa 109 The life these people lead is a hard one.
1920Blackw. Mag. Mar. 322/2 The mate of a Yankee hard-case. 1924R. Clements Gipsy of Horn vi. 111 He signed away as Third Mate on a hard-case Yankee barque.
1900Ade More Fables in Slang (1902) 18 Her Hard⁓luck story. 1906B. von Hutten What became of Pam ii. viii, Learning..something of..his hard-luck story. 1919H. L. Wilson Ma Pettengill iv. 109 She said it [sc. the letter] would tell a new hard-luck tale for non-payment of a note. Ibid. 134 It was another hard-luck letter. 1959P. H. Johnson Humbler Creation v. 32 The hard-luck stories of all parsons whose luck would never get any better.
1916‘Taffrail’ Pincher Martin iv. 56 ‘They ain't so bad,’ he murmured. ‘You gits a tanner a day, 'ard lyers in 'em.’ 1920― H.M.S. Anonymous xv. 291 What d'you think the government pay us one and six hard lyers for? Twenty seven extra bloomin' pounds per annum.
1916― Pincher Martin iv. 56 Men serving in destroyers receive sixpence a day extra pay. It is known as ‘hard-lying money’. 1925Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words, Hard-lying money, the extra allowance granted to officers and men for service in destroyers and torpedo boats, and as compensation for wear and tear of uniform and clothing, etc. Extended in the War to the crews of motor launches and other auxiliary small craft. (Abolished in 1923.) 1927Daily Express 10 Oct. 3 Sometimes, in recompense for discomforts endured, the crews of drifters draw what is termed ‘hard-lying money’ (those who receive this are naturally known as ‘hard liars’).
b. Of time.
1390Gower Conf. I. 312 It hath ben sene and felt full ofte, The harde time after the softe. c1477Caxton Jason 45 b, The time must be taken as hit cometh, is hit hard or softe. 1705Hickeringill Priest-cr. ii. viii. 73 Money is Money, a very necessary Commodity in Hard times. 1812Shelley Address Prose Wks. 1888 I. 228 There are always bad men who take advantage of hard times. 1861Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. viii, They had a hard time of it too, for my father had to go on half-pay. 1890Lecky Eng. in 18th C. VII. 14, 1793 was eminently a ‘hard year’, and great numbers of labourers were out of employment.
c. Of the weather, etc.: Severe, rigorous, violent. In hard winter there is often present a notion of the frozen state of the ground, etc.
1552Huloet, Harde winter or verye colde, sæuissima Hyems. 1568Grafton Chron. II. 37 A blasyng starre, whereupon folowed an hard Wynter. 1679–88Secr. Serv. Money Chas. & Jas. (Camden) 81 He said Majesties bounty and charity..in respect of the extreme hard weather. 1686Lond. Gaz. No. 2199/4 With a hard gale or Wind at S.S.W. a1691Boyle Hist. Air (1692) 115 Very hard frost. Thames frozen. Carts went over. 1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 16 We had extraordinary hard Rain. 1700S. L. tr. Fryke's Voy. E. Ind. 299 A very hard Storm fell upon us in the way. 1755N. Magens Insurances II. 98 Any Thing that falls over board [or] is spoiled or damaged by hard Weather. 1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) Ss iv b, It is called a storm or hard gale. 1814Sporting Mag. LXIV. 62 To catch..wood-pigeons in hard weather. 1884Nonconf. & Indep. 16 Oct. 1006/1 We shall have a ‘hard’ winter. 1890Boldrewood Col. Reformer (1891) 160 A grizzled, hard-weather-looking old sea-dog.
12. a. Of persons: Harsh or severe in dealing with any one. Const. († to), on, upon.
c1000Ags. Gosp. Matt. xxv. 24 Hlaford ic wat þæt ðu eart heard mann, þu ripst þær ðu ne seowe. a1123O.E. Chron. an. 1043 Heo wæs þan cynge hire suna swiðe heard. a1300Cursor M. 28743 Sin crist is buxum to vnbind, Qui sal man preist ouer hard find. c1450tr. De Imitatione, i. xiii. 14 Be not harde to him þat is tempted, ȝeue him comfort. 1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 84 Heavie and hard neighbours to the Church in Judea. 1682Lond. Gaz. No. 1737/2 The French..are very hard upon the Tenants to make them pay their Rents, with all their Arrears. 1738Swift Pol. Convers. 19 Colonel, why so hard upon poor Miss? 1862Trollope Orley F. xiv, Felix began to perceive that he had been too hard upon her.
b. Of things, actions, etc.: Characterized by harshness or severity; unfeeling, cruel, harsh, rough.
a1000Crist 1443 Ic þæt sar for ðe..ᵹeþolade hosp and heard cwide. 1393Langl. P. Pl. C. i. 122 God shal take veniaunce..Wel harder and grettere..þan euere he dude on ophni. 1435Misyn Fire of Love i. xii. 26 Þai fed me comonly or on hard maner. 1552Huloet, Hard fare, aridus uictus. 1593Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iv. ix. 45 He is fierce, and cannot brooke hard language. 1663Butler Hud. i. i. 3 When hard words, jealousies, and fears Set folks together by the ears. 1784Cowper Task i. 123 Hard fare! but such as boyish appetite Disdains not. 1864Burton Scot Abr. I. iii. 109 All was rough, hard, and ungenial. 1887R. Garnett Carlyle viii. 135 She almost invariably took a hard view of persons and things.
c. Strict, without abatement or concession.
1612Earl of Dorset Lett. in Crt. & Times Jas. I, 210 He will have but a hard bargain of it. 1647Ward Simp. Cobler 30 They never complain of me for giving them hard measure, or under-weight. 1870R. B. Brough Marston Lynch xvii. 163 A man who had possessed the power to drive a hard bargain. 1968Times 26 Aug. 7/2 The House of Commons today must take a hard look at British defence policy.
d. Pol. Designating a strict or hard-line faction at the wing of a political party or of the political spectrum, esp. as hard left, hard right. Cf. hardshell n. 3, loony a. 2; contr. with soft a. 11 c.
1975New Left Rev. Nov.–Dec. 69 For the foreseeable future, then, the hard right has the initiative in Turkey. 1976National Observer (U.S.) 17 Apr. 5/5 It is a fact that the hard-left liberals don't like him. 1977[see soft a. 11 c]. 1985Mail on Sunday 3 Mar. 10/5 Intelligence chiefs believe the explosion..was the work of the new hard-Left of the outlawed Irish National Liberation Army. 1986Tribune 12 Sept. 7/5 On some recent nec votes she has been in a hard Right minority of just two with Ken Cure.
III. In various transferred senses.
13. Having the aspect, sound, etc., of what is physically hard (sense 1); harsh or unpleasant to the eye or ear, or to the æsthetic faculty.
1513[implied in hard-favoured]. 1599Shakes. Much Ado v. ii. 38, I can finde out no rime..for scorne, [but] horne, a hard rime. 1622Middleton & Rowley Changeling ii. ii, When we're us'd to a hard face, 'tis not so unpleasing. 1682Grew Anat. Plants Pref., Some of the Plates..are a little hard and stiff. a1700Dryden (J.), His diction is hard, his figures too bold, and his tropes..insufferably strained. a1744Pope Answ. to Mrs. Howe 6 A Virgin hard of Feature. 1754Eeles in Phil. Trans. XLIX. 142 And form what the sailors call a hard dry sky. 1830Capt. T. Hamilton C. Thornton (1845) 47 A stiff and raw-boned looking matron, hard in feature. 1854Hawthorne Eng. Note-Bks. (1879) II. 170 A generally hard outline of country. 1872Tennyson Gareth & Lynette 1083 Then that other blew A hard and deadly note upon the horn. 1876Humphreys Coin Coll. Man. xxv. 363 The hard and peculiar style of the period. 1882Besant Revolt of Man iii. (1883) 72 It was a hard face even when she smiled. 1894Brit. Jrnl. Photog. XLI. 51 Very dense, or as we should call it now, hard, negatives.
14. a. Applied to water holding in solution mineral, especially calcareous, salts, which decompose soap and render the water unfit for washing purposes.
1660F. Brooke tr. Le Blanc's Trav. 18 The water was sharp and hard, but nothing brackish. 1756C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. 83 Hard waters are the best for builders and plasterers. 1805W. Saunders Min. Waters 305 A very hard water, curdling soap, and possessing a large portion of selenite and earthy carbonats. 1849R. T. Claridge Cold Water-cure (1869) 85 Hard water makes the skin rough, but soft water, on the contrary, renders it smooth.
b. Of liquor: Harsh or sharp to the taste; acid; sour from being stale. Now dial. or slang.
1581G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. ii. (1586) 73 Neither hard wine is pleasant to the tast, neither haughtie behaviour acceptable in companie. 1592Greene Disc. Coosnage iii. 20 Hee tastes the other pinte of wine..it dranke somewhat harde. a1700B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Hard Drink, that is very Stale, or beginning to Sower. 1833Drakard's Stamford News 1 Oct., To prevent beer from getting acetous, or what is called hard.
c. Intoxicating, spirituous, ‘strong’. colloq. orig. U.S.
1789F. Asbury Jrnl. (1821) II. 304 [A] drink made of one quart of hard cider, [etc.]. 1810M. L. Weems Lett. (1929) III. 13 What could possibly have kept me from hard drink? 1840Congress. Globe 13 Feb. 197/3 He had heard..the same arguments preached nine hundred and ninety-nine times over a barrel of hard cider. 1848Ibid. 27 Apr. 688/2 They had charged him [sc. President Harrison] with drinking hard cider. 1857Spirit of Times 3 Jan. 281/1 It was not infrequent, as late as the hard-cider campaign of 1840,..that [etc.]. 1861H. W. Harper Lett. from N.Z. (1914) iv. 67 Order up some hard stuff to give them something to drink. 1879Boston Trav. 20 Sept. (Cent.), Before the court..for selling hard liquor, when he had only a licence for selling ale. 1884J. Purves in Gd. Words May 330/2 Two or three kegs of the ‘hard stuff’. 1888Pall Mall G. 17 Sept. 7/2 The consumption of ‘hard liquors’.. has steadily decreased. 1946F. Sargeson That Summer 35 They all started on hard stuff and went on to beer later. 1964C. Willock Enormous Zoo ix. 169 With a hard drink in the hand the day lengthens and softens. 1965O. A. Mendelsohn Dict. Drink 90 Cider,... If fermented and therefore alcoholic, the term hard cider is frequently used.
d. Of oil (see soft a. 23 d).
e. Of drugs: dangerous and habit-forming, addictive, e.g. heroin and cocaine.
1955Amer. Speech XXX. 87 Hard stuff, opium. 1965‘Malcolm X’ Autobiogr. vii. 110 As the pros did, I too would key myself to pull these jobs by my first use of hard dope. I began with..sniffing cocaine. 1967Listener 10 Aug. 169/2 Nothing on earth would persuade me to try LSD or the hard drugs. 1967Times 7 Oct. 5/3 The Court said that anyone supplying a child with a hard drug was doing a terrible deed which called for grave punishment... The Court refused an application..for leave to appeal against..conviction..of supplying a dangerous drug (six tablets of heroin). 1969J. Gardner Compl. State of Death ix. 167 You start on pot and straight off you're mixing with people who've graduated to the hard stuff.
f. Of nuclear sites and structures (see quot. 1960). Also applied to nuclear missiles.
1958R. D. Bowers in Air Univ. Q. Rev. X. 91 It would be useful to know how the cost of a hard base compares to that of a soft base if they have equal measures of merit (cost per surviving missile). 1960Amer. Speech XXXV. 302 The adjective hard is now used in certain parts of the Air Force..to refer to the resistance to atomic explosions of airfields, missile launching pads, command posts, and other structures, their resistance coming from underground location or toughness of structure or both. 1962Listener 29 Mar. 547/2 The American development of missiles such as Minuteman which can be fired from strongly protected pits in the ground—the so-called hard missile sites—as well as the Polaris submarines. 1965H. Kahn On Escalation vii. 136 Let the reader assume..that both the Soviet Union and the United States have 10,000 hard and dispersed missiles on each side.
15. Comm. Of prices: High and unyielding; stiff. Said also of the market, etc.
1838D. Webster Private Corr. (1856) II. 37 Money is very hard, all along the coast, from here [i.e. Washington, D.C.] North. 1882Pall Mall G. 1 July 5/2 Yesterday's Money Market was extremely hard. 1892Daily News 11 Feb. 2/5 In American cotton..prices are reported harder.
16. Phonetics. Popularly applied to certain consonants:
a. to the letters c, g, when they have their original ‘back’ or guttural sounds |k, g|, as distinguished from the palatal and sibilant sounds (tʃ, ts, s, dʒ, etc.) into which they have passed in various languages;
b. to the breath consonants |k, t, p, and sometimes x, ʃ, s, θ, f| as opposed to the corresponding voiced consonants |g, d, b; ɣ, ʒ, z, ð, v|.
[c1620A. Hume Brit. Tongue vii. (1870) 17 Quhen the hammer and the stiddie are ane, the difference is in the hardnes and softnes of the tuich; as may be seen in ca and ga, ta and da.] 1775J. Walker Dict. Introd. 13 Shewing that the preceding c and g in these words are soft, which might possibly be mistaken, and pronounced hard, if written changable, peacable. 1828Webster Dict. Introd. 36 When a is preceded by the gutturals hard g or c. 1846Worcester Dict. Introd. 15 G before e, i, and y, is sometimes hard and sometimes soft. Ibid. 19 Th..has two sounds; one, hard, sharp, or aspirate, as in thin..the other flat, soft, or vocal, as in..then, breathe. 1877T. L. Papillon Man. Comp. Philol. iii. (ed. 2) 32 Consonants..a. Tenues..also called ‘sharp’, ‘hard’, ‘surd’.
17. Physics.
a. Of radiation: having great penetrating power.
1902Encycl. Brit. XXVIII. 52/2 If the exhaustion of the bulb is carried further, so that there is a considerable increase in the potential difference between the cathode and anode and therefore in the velocity of the cathode rays, the Röntgen rays have much greater penetrating power and are often called ‘hard rays’. 1938R. W. Lawson tr. Hevesy & Paneth's Man. Radioactivity (ed. 2) iv. 49 The wave-length of the ‘hard’ γ-radiation is so small that even crystals are of no avail here as diffraction gratings. 1940Nature 8 June 903/2 (title) Absorption of hard cosmic rays and mesotron decay. 1943Electronic Engin. XVI. 54 Short wave, or hard, radiation penetrates more deeply into the tissues. 1955Gloss. Terms Radiology (B.S.I.) 12 Hard radiation, a term used to describe qualitatively the more penetrating types of X-rays, beta rays and gamma rays.
b. Of a vacuum: complete or almost complete. Of a vacuum tube or thermionic valve: containing a high vacuum.
1899W. Crookes in Rep. Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 1898 23 Röntgen suggests a convenient phraseology; he calls a low vacuum tube, which does not emit the highly penetrating rays, a ‘soft’ tube, and a tube in which the exhaustion has been pushed to an extreme degree, in which the highly penetrating rays predominate, a ‘hard’ tube. 1919R. Stanley Textbk. Wireless Telegr. (ed. 2) II. 22 With a hard vacuum none of these varying effects are present... The hard valve, made by Langmuir, was called by him a Pliotron. 1923E. W. Marchant Radio Telegr. v. 61 Hard Valves.—The only way in which this can be achieved is by exhausting the air so completely from the bulb that there is nothing but a pure electron discharge. 1931Duncan & Drew Radio Telegr. & Telephony (ed. 2) 214 The degree of vacuum in the tube would change and some tubes became soft (having less vacuum) while others became hard (having a higher vacuum, with little or no gas present). 1940Chambers's Techn. Dict. 403/1 Hard tube, a high-vacuum discharge tube. 1943Gloss. Terms Telecomm. (B.S.I.) 28 Hard vacuum tube, a vacuum tube evacuated to such a degree that its electrical characteristics are essentially unaffected by ionisation of included gas. 1953Electronic Engin. XXV. 241 A blocking oscillator was first used as a hard-valve time-base in 1923. 1962F. I. Ordway et al. Basic Astronautics xi. 449 The hard-vacuum condition of space.
IV. Intense, strenuous, violent.
†18. Intense in force or degree; strong, deep, profound. Obs.
971Blickl. Hom. 59 On þone heardestan stenc. c1489Caxton Sonnes of Aymon xiv. 323 Thei fell in to so harde a slepe that thei forgate richard. 1535Coverdale Gen. ii. 21 The Lorde God caused an herde slepe to fall vpon man. 1807Pike Sources Mississ. (1810) 30 Passed some large islands and remarkably hard ripples.
19. a. Carried on or performed with great exertion, energy, or persistence; unremitting; (of study) close; involving great labour or effort; vehement, vigorous, violent. Qualifying a noun of action, and akin to hard adv.
Beowulf (Z.) 577 No ic on niht ᵹefræᵹn..heardran feohtan. a1300Cursor M. 5527 Wit herd werckes þai held þam in. c1450Merlin 446 Full harde and felon was the bateile ther. 1548Hall Chron., Hen. VI, 87 b, A sore conflict and an hard encountre. 1596Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iv. iii. 23 Their courage with hard labour tame and dull. 1600Holland Livy l. Argt. 1239 Hard hold [magno certamine] there was about him. 1629Massinger Picture ii. ii, A day's hard riding. 1714Mandeville Fab. Bees (1733) II. 417 Many..kill themselves with hard drinking. 1727Swift Gulliver iii. iv. 200, I had obtained by hard study a good degree of knowledge. 1760–72tr. Juan & Ulloa's Voy. (ed. 3) I. 29 Reduced to have recourse to mean and hard labour for subsistence. 1821Clare Vill. Ministr. II. 55 My hard day's work is done. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 445 The fight must be long and hard. 1884I. Bligh in Lilywhite's Cricket Ann. 3 A fine specimen of hard hitting.
b. hard labour: labour imposed upon certain classes of criminals during their term of imprisonment; see quot. 1865. hard swearing, swearing (as a witness) persistently and tenaciously to one effect regardless of perjury; hence often a euphemism for ‘perjury’.
1853Act 16 & 17 Vict. c. 99 §6 Every Person..ordered to be kept in Penal Servitude..may during such term be kept to Hard Labour. 1865Act 28 & 29 Vict. c. 126 §19 Hard Labour for the Purposes of this Act shall be of Two Classes, consisting, 1st, of Work at the Tread Wheel, Shot Drill, Crank, Capstan, Stone-breaking, or..other like Description of hard bodily labour. 1887Spectator 20 Aug. 1114 There is not, we fancy, much false-swearing; but there is probably a considerable amount of hard-swearing. 1892T. Seccombe in Dict. Nat. Biog. XXIX. 37/1 The hard swearing of Oates and Bedloe..overcame any scruples on the part of the jury. 1896Westm. Gaz. 29 July 5/1 The term ‘hard’ now has no particular meaning except as applied to the kind of labour called ‘first-class hard labour’. 1905Daily Chron. 10 July 5/2 Hard-labour convicts. Ibid. 6 Nov. 5/6 Hard-labour prisoners. 1908Ibid. 7 Jan. 4/6.
20. Acting or carrying on one's work with great energy, exertion, or persistence; unremitting, persistent. Qualifying an agent-noun: cf. prec. sense.
1663Flagellum, or O. Cromwell (ed. 2) 5 A hard Student for a week or two. 1747tr. Le Blanc's Lett. Eng. & Fr. Nations I. 327 The Goths..are said to have been hard-drinkers. 1813Ld. Eldon Sp. in Parl. 18 May in Examiner 24 May 326/1 For him..and others who were hard labourers. 1859Kingsley Misc. (1860) I. 151 The hardest rider for many a mile round. 1895J. W. Budd in Law Times XCIX. 543/1 Every hard worker..requires sufficient and regular holidays.
V. Phrases and Combinations.
21. † to the hard..(with various ns.): to the very... Also, at (the) hard..(obs.). † at hard edge, at close conflict, in actual contact (obs.). [This app. began with things that were actually hard, and was thence extended to others. (See exhaustive article by Dr. Fitzedward Hall, in (N.Y.) Nation 24 May 1894.] hard at it (cf. 19); hard cases make bad law (see quot. 1903); to play hard to get (cf. play v. 34), to pretend to remain aloof, to act or behave as if unapproachable or uninterested; also hard-to-get attrib. phr., aloof, unapproachable.
c1400Mandeville (1839) xxviii. 283 Wee weren cast doun and beten down..to the hard erthe be wyndes, and thondres. 1470–85Malory Arthur i. xiv, Their hors knees brast to the hard bone. c1489Caxton Sonnes of Aymon xii. 305 He clove his hede to the harde teeth. 1526Tindale John ii. 7 Filled them up to the harde brym. 1528More Dyaloge ii. Wks. 187/1, I am in this matter euen at the harde wall, & se not how to go further. a1553Udall Royster D. i. i. (Arb.) 12 Vp is he to the harde eares in loue. 1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 457 To mainteyne a lye in any matter whatsoever, even to the hardhedg, as they say. 1591Harington Orl. Fur. xxxiii. lxxii. (1634) 273 They might a thousand times at hard-edge meet And neither blade thereby a gap would get. 1635N. R. tr. Camden's Hist. Eliz. ii. 213 That he might follow the report of his comming at the hard heeles. 1726G. Shelvocke Voy. round World (1757) 203, I kept all the canvas..at hard bats-end. 1754Richardson Grandison (1812) I. 120, I will never meet at hard-edge with her.
1749Fielding Tom Jones III. vii. v. 32 Pray who hath been the Occasion of putting her into those violent Passions? Nay, who hath actually put her into them? Was not you and she hard at it before I came into the Room? 1811Jane Austen Let. 30 Apr. (1932) 278 By this time I suppose she is hard at it, governing away—poor creature! 1923J. S. Huxley Ess. Biologist iii. 119 The two are hard at it, shaking their heads. 1964C. Willock Enormous Zoo i. 13 The circular saws were soon hard at it.
1854G. Hayes in W. S. Holdsworth Hist. Eng. Law (1926) IX. App. 423 Sur. B. [i.e. Baron Surrebutter] A hard case. But hard cases make bad law. 1903V. S. Lean Collectanea III. 479 Hard cases make bad law. i.e. lead to legislation for exceptions. 1909Spectator 22 May 809/1 ‘Hard cases make bad law’, and also bad policy.
1945A. Kober Parm Me 32 ‘I played ‘hard to get’. Y' know,’ he amplified, ‘like I couldn't be bothered.’ 1951Wodehouse Old Reliable xi. 132 Why are you pulling this hard-to-get stuff on Joe? 1951Auden Nones (1952) 18 But that Miss Number in the corner Playing hard to get. 1959P. Capon Amongst those Missing 194 To be blunt, you sort of strike me as playing hard to get. 1959J. Fleming Miss Bones xv. 168 Is she playing hard-to-get? he thought angrily. 1961Times 26 Oct. 18/1 Miss Nancie Jackson's Millamant is a statuesque blonde, playing hard-to-get while keeping our sympathy. 1962Guardian 8 Feb. 7/4 The wish to create a hard-to-get atmosphere for the coming negotiations.
22. Comb. Parasynthetic compounds, as hard-billed, having a hard bill; so hard-backed, hard-based, hard-boned, hard-burdened, hard-coated, hard-conditioned, hard-edged, hard-eyed, hard-faced, hard-fated, hard-feathered, hard-fortuned, hard-glazed, hard-haired, hard-leaved, hard-lipped, hard-mailed, hard-minded, hard-nailed, hard-named, hard-natured, hard-skinned, hard-spirited, hard-textured, hard-timbered, hard-toiled, hard-visaged, hard-walled, etc.; hard-grained, having a hard grain; fig. of a close or unsympathetic character; † hard-necked, † hard-nolled, obstinate, stiff-necked; † hard-witted, dull at learning. Also hard-favoured, -featured, etc.
1853Mrs. Gaskell Cranford xvi. 312 Mr. Peter said he was tired of sitting upright against the *hard-backed uneasy chairs. 1959Hardbacked [see hardback 2].
1959Listener 31 Dec. 1140/1 Within a few years it [sc. the American Strategic Air Command] will have at its disposal enough ‘*hard-based’ missiles—that is, either housed in protected subterranean sites or mounted on mobile carriers—to make it impossible for any surprise attack to succeed at all.
1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1790) V. 339 (Jod.) *Hard-billed singing-birds. 1797T. Bewick Brit. Birds (1847) I. p. v, The hard-billed birds..which live chiefly on seeds.
1636Earl of Strafford Lett. & Disp. (1739) II. 20 An austere *hard-conditioned Man.
1954J. R. R. Tolkien Two Towers 22 Long slopes they climbed, dark, *hard-edged against the sky. 1964English Studies XLV. 28 Nor are registers hard-edged pigeon-holes.
1841–4Emerson Ess., Experience Wks. (Bohn) I. 173 Moaning women, and *hard-eyed husbands.
1871J. G. Whittier Marguerite in Wks. (1898), By her bed the *hard-faced mistress sat. 1958B. Nichols Sweet & Twenties 145 Harding was a hardfaced provincial politician.
1591Percivall Sp. Dict., Encañonarse las aves, to be *hard feathered.
1928Daily Express 6 Oct. 11/7 A *hard-glazed lacquer work upon tin-plate.
1847Tennyson Princ. Prol. 178 *Hard-grained Muses of the cube and square. 1852Dickens Bleak Ho. xxii, A hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent.
1926J. Masefield Odtaa xiii. 223 Hi crackled through some *hard-leaved scrub.
1849Rossetti Let. 27 Sept. (1965) I. 60 Hunt reads Dumas, *hard-lipped. 1961John o' London's 6 July 57/2 One of his virtuoso essays in hard-lipped sensitivity.
1879G. M. Hopkins Sermons (1959) 18 Christ has..made us deaf here,..with his hands *hardnailed out and appealingly stretched on the cross. 1910W. de la Mare Three Mulla-Mulgars xvii. 232 Long, hairy, hard⁓nailed toes.
1683Kennett tr. Erasm. on Folly (1709) 53 All those *hard-named fellows cannot make So great a figure as a single quack.
1889F. M. Peard Paul's Sister II. 192 A handsome, imperious, *hard-natured woman.
1535Coverdale Baruch ii. 30 It is an *hardnecked people. 1586J. Hooker Girald. Irel. in Holinshed. II. 134/2 That effrenated and hardnecked people.
1388Wyclif Ecclus. xvi. 11 If oon hadde be *hard nollid, wondur if he hadde be giltles. 1552Huloet, *Hard skynned, duricorius.
1664H. More Myst. Iniq., Apol. 541, I dare appeal even to the *hardestspirited person to judge of it.
1937E. Sitwell I live under Black Sun 141 A sour *hard-textured unripe plum.
1593Shakes. 3 Hen. VI, ii. i. 55 Hewes downe and fells the *hardest-tymber'd Oake.
1721Lond. Gaz. No. 6009/3 George Parsons..*hard visag'd, with a narrow Cloth Drab coloured Coat on.
a1568R. Ascham Scholem. (Arb.) 31 When they meete with a *hard witted scholer, they rather breake him, than bowe him.
23. a. In names of trees and plants: hard-corn, a general name for wheat and rye; hard fescue (see fescue n. 4); hard-grass, a name given locally to various coarse dry grasses, e.g. Dactylis glomerata, Lepturus incurvatus, species of Sclerochloa, Rottbœllia, etc.; † hard-hay, Hypericum quadrangulum; † hard-how, a name of the Marigold, Calendula officinalis; hard-rush, Juncus effusus; hard-tinder fungus, Boletus igniarius; hard wheat, any wheat having a hard grain rich in gluten; also attrib. Also hardbeam, -hack, -head. b. In other connexions, chiefly technical: hard bargain, a thing or person not worth its cost; see also 12 c; hard bop (see bop n.2); hard-bread, a kind of hard-baked cake or biscuit; hard cheddar, cheese colloq., hard luck (see also sense 1 h above); hard chine [chine n.3 2] (see quot. 1961); so hard-chined a.; hard copy (see quots.); hard core, (a) (see core n.1 7 d); (b) an irreducible nucleus or residuum; also a stubborn or reactionary minority; something blatant or intractable; freq. attrib.; hard cover orig. U.S., (of a book) a stiff binding case, chiefly (with hyphen) attrib.; also hard-covered a. = hard-bound (hard adv. 8 d); hard currency, (a) in specie as opposed to paper currency, metallic currency (obs.); (b) (see quot. 1949); hard-dirt, (see quot.); hard disc Computing, a disc (disc n. 2 g) that is rigid and has a large storage capacity, as distinct from the smaller-capacity floppy disc; hard dot Printing (see quot. 1968); hard-edge, a style of painting (see quot. 19621); also freq. attrib.; hard facing Metallurgy, the application to the surface of a metal of a protective hard material resistant to wear, corrosion, etc.; hence hard-faced a.; hard finish, -ing, in Plastering, the third and last coat, consisting of fine stuff laid on to the depth of about an eighth of an inch; hard fish, (see quot.); hard glass, a borosilicate glass (cf. pyrex); hard hat, (a) a hat made of hard or stiffened felt; a bowler hat; (b) a tin helmet; (c) a person who wears a tin helmet, spec. a construction worker;(d) a person who is reactionary or conservative; also attrib.; hard-hitter (hat) Austral. and N.Z. colloq., = bowler3; hard-holing (see quot.); hard landing Astronaut., an uncontrolled landing in which the vehicle is destroyed; so hard lander; hard-line attrib. , adhering to a hard or firm policy without abatement or concession (cf. sense 12 c); so hard-liner; hard-nosed a., (a) (see quot. 1889); (b) U.S. slang, obstinate, stubborn; hard pad, a form of distemper in dogs and sometimes other animals; hard pear: see hardpeer; hard-rock, (a) attrib. or as adj. (N. Amer.), ‘experienced in underground work in hard massive formations;—said of a miner’ (Webster 1934); (b) (N. Amer. slang) as noun phr., a hard, craggy person; also attrib.; (c) a type of strident music; hard sell orig. U.S., aggressive salesmanship or advertising; also attrib.; hard-sell v.; hard-selling; hard-sold ppl. a.; hard shoulder (see quot. 1955); hard-standing (occas. hard-stand) (see quots. 1951, 1956); hard top, (a) a rigid or fixed roof of a motor-car (as opposed to one of soft material); also a car so fitted; (b) (see quot. 1957); hard tube (see sense 17 b); hard twist, a hard-spun yarn, a yarn with more than the usual amount of twist; hard valve (see sense 17 b); hard waste (see quot.); hardway = hard B. 4.
1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., *Hard bargain, a useless fellow; a skulker. 1893J. A. Barry S. Brown's Bunyip, etc. 48 Let a couple of the hard-bargains sling their hammocks in the after-hold.
14..Nom. in Wr.-Wülcker 739/37 Hoc colifium, *hardbred. 1781Heath in R. Putnam Mem. (1903) 187 The major is gone to the commissary to obtain some hard bread if possible. 1835in J. B. Thoburn Stand. Hist. Oklahoma (1916) vi. 74 The ration of bread shall be one pound of wheat flour, Indian meal, or hard bread. 1857W. Chandless Visit Salt Lake ii. 11 What we call rolls, in America are ycleped biscuits, and biscuits in their turn hard bread. 1866Prime in Harvard Mem. Biog., G. W. Batchelder II. 10 He has divided his last cake of hard-bread, and compelled me to take it. 1905G. E. Cole Early Oregon i. 12 Having no salt junk or hard bread left.
1931‘N. Bell’ Life & Andrew Otway 464 ‘He knew all about cutting throats. Seen a bit in his time.’ ‘*Hard cheddar. I reckon a bullet'd be my mark if I wanted to pass in my checks.’ Ibid. 465 No, I don't see how you can blame the bleedin' government. Hard cheddar on you but—.
1876, etc. *Hard cheese [see cheese n.1 2 d]. 1913C. Mackenzie Sinister St. I. ii. i. 149, I thought it hard cheese on her. 1973J. I. M. Stewart Mungo's Dream xxii. 270 It was hard cheese on him coming up against another top-class specimen.
1912Motor Boat Man. (ed. 5) v. 44 ‘Miranda IV’..has a single step... The *hard chine or angular bilge is not an essential feature. 1951Engineering 8 June 680/2 In general, the appraisal of the respective merits and demerits of round-bilge, hard-chine and stepped hulls is fair and temperate. 1961F. H. Burgess Dict. Sailing 110 Hard chine, a feature of a boat in which the topsides and bottom meet at an angle instead of curving to a round bilge. 1967Jane's Surface Skimmer Systems 1967–68 86/2 A small sports hydrofoil, the ST-1 has a typical hard-chine type hull of wooden construction.
1966Amer. Speech Oct. 235 Lightning, a wood-planked, *hard-chined boat made for racing.
1964Gloss. Automated Typesetting (C.I.S.) 17 *Hard copy, a printed (typewritten) record or copy of machine output. 1964T. W. McRae Impact of Computers on Accounting vi. 165 An intermediate device, the computer, is necessary to translate the ‘magnetic’ records into a ‘hard copy’ format suitable for audit.
1936Nature 12 Sept. 441/2 Possibly 200,000 would be practically unemployable on any ordinary basis—the ‘*hard core’ as it is called. 1940Economist 3 Feb. 193/2 One of the more encouraging developments of the last few months is a substantial loosening of what has hitherto been regarded as the ‘hard core’ of unemployment. 1951J. Cornish Provincials 24 The party was acknowledged even by the hard-core cynics to be a credit to the Dunseith brothers. 1955Treatm. Brit. P.O.W.'s in Korea (H.M.S.O.) 25 This camp..was the home of the hard core of Other Rank reactionaries—men who had distinguished themselves by their heroic resistance to all Chinese brutality. 1956Ann. Reg. 1955 300 A hard core of Karens in both zones maintained resistance. 1958Daily Mail 15 Aug. 2/1 More than 100 hardcore EOKA terrorists have been netted in the anti-terrorist operation. 1958Listener 11 Dec. 982/1 In seven ‘hard core’ States, no Negro child attends a white school. 1959F. van P. Bryan in Ernst & Schwartz Censorship (1964) xix. 130 A work of literature..stands on quite a different footing from hard core pornography. 1961R. Kee Refugee World iii. 26 Weiss, the Frankfurt jeweller..was a ‘hard⁓core’ case in 1950. 1968Times 2 Sept. 2/7 Heathrow airport..could, perhaps, be called the hard core of Britain's noise problem. 1973Times Lit. Suppl. 20 Apr. 451/5 The leading modern writer of hard-core science fiction.
1608in N. & Q. 8th Ser. XI. 201/2 The *hard corne fielde to be made before the feast of St. Mathewe. 1646Yorksh. Roy. Compos. Papers I. 94, 350 stooks hardecorn, 49 stooks barley.
1949in Amer. Speech (1952) XXVII. 148 *Hard-cover reprints. Ibid., Hard-cover reprint house. 1951Sat. Rev. Lit. 12 May 31/1 Much of the reading involves books whose quality does not justify any particular consideration just because the pages are bound inside a hard cover. 1951Publishers' Weekly 12 May 1949 Each issue will be a hard-cover book. 1957Economist 5 Oct. 45/1 Critics of mass market publishing suspect that it spreads mediocrity, even to the hardcover business. 1960News Chron. 10 Jan. 3/7 The Heinemann group..published..an expurgated version of ‘Lady Chatterley’..in hard cover in this country. Ibid. 3/8, I would immediately bring out a hard-cover edition. 1968Times 14 Sept. 21/4 The whole inquiry relates exclusively to hard-cover sales.
1952Amer. Speech XXVII. 147 (heading) Books: hard-bound, hard-cased, *hard-covered, limp-covered.
1851J. H. Green Twelve Days in Tombs 33 The politicians were fiercely discussing the ‘*hard’ and ‘soft’ currency question. 1940Economist 6 Apr. 609/1 The phenomenon of a ‘free’ rate diverging from the ‘official’ rate occurs only in respect of those so-called ‘hard’ currencies for which official rates are fixed by the Bank of England (notably American dollars). 1948Hansard Commons 29 Jan. 1247 As a hard-currency market, the United States is of great importance. 1948Ibid. 9 Mar. 1003 Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer think it right to spend over {pstlg}60 million a year in hard currency? 1949Times 10 Sept., Hard currency, a term without precise meaning. In general, when used in relation to this country, it means the currency of any country with which this country has an adverse balance of payments in current transactions which has to be settled in gold or dollars... Hard currency is..a relative rather than an absolute term, reflecting as it does the relation between one currency and another. 1950Engineering 10 Feb. 144/1 Vehicles for export to hard-currency countries. 1957Times 2 Sept. 27/2 Canadians last week enjoyed the mixed blessing of having the world's hardest currency. 1969Listener 20 Feb. 229/3 Arthritis would have helped me break into the hardest of hard-currency resort areas.
1851Mayhew Lond. Labour (1861) II. 281 ‘*Hard-dirt’, or ‘hard-core’, consisting of the refuse bricks, chimney-pots..broken bottles..oyster-shells, &c., which form part of the contents of the dustman's cart.
1978Practical Computing July–Aug. 31/3 Also on display is a *hard-disc system which uses Pertec 10Mbyte discs. 1982Times 26 Oct. 15/7 Hard disks are made to a far higher degree of precision, using an aluminium platter that is extremely finely ground and polished before the magnetic oxide coating is applied. 1983Pop. Computing Sept. 168 The standard Winchester hard disk is permanently attached to its recording unit.
1961Dugan & Pine in Penrose Ann. LV. 135 (title) The *hard-dot positive in gravure. Ibid., The need for a ‘hard-dot’ in the positive plates. 1968Gloss. Terms Offset Lithogr. Printing (B.S.I.) 15 Hard dot, a half-tone dot with a high edge density.
1961Times 6 June 16/5 The ‘*hard-edge’ abstractions of recent years. 1962Guardian 18 Jan. 7/7 During the last three years..a new branch-line in British painting has opened up and been loosely labelled the ‘hard-edge school’... The paintings tend to be precisely geometric, crisp..and totally withdrawn from any personal emotive content. Ibid. 12 July 6/4 Hard-edge is socially useful..but it is neither art nor painting. 1962Listener 21 June 1080/2 Kelly is a ‘hard-edge’ abstractionist. He balances simple areas of sharply defined flat colour one against the other. 1965New Statesman 30 Apr. 693/2 The exhibition effects an uneasy marriage between, on the one hand, hard-edge abstraction and stain painting, fields in which the Americans easily excel, and, on the other, optical art.
1960Jrnl. Iron & Steel Inst. CXCIV. 269/3 *Hard-faced rolls had a useful service life five times as long as the usual steel rolls.
1930Ibid. CXXII. 542 Welded-on overlays or ‘*hard facings’ have been applied to drill bits and other tools to combat abrasion. 1931Ibid. CXXIV. 634 The author cites a number of applications of hard facing and indicates the economy of the process.
1730W. Warren Collect. in Willis & Clark Cambridge (1886) I. 231 The side-walls..of y⊇ Chapel done with *Hard finishing (as 'tis call'd) and Stucco-work.
1808–18Jamieson, *Hard fish, cod, ling, &c., salted and dried.
1904S. P. Mulliken Method Identification Pure Org. Compounds I. 10 Prepare an ignition-tube 8–10 cm. in length from a piece of *hard-glass combustion tubing. 1937Discovery Nov. 360/2 Pyrex and other hard glasses. 1965Phillips & Williams Inorg. Chem. I. xiv. 545 Hard glass or pyrex is made from mixed boron (30 per cent) and silicon oxides.
1806J. Galpine Brit. Bot. §44. 10 Rotbollia incurvata, sea *hard-grass. 1961R. W. Butcher Brit. Flora II. 978 Parapholis (Lepturus) incurva. The curved hard-grass is a small, tufted annual with many erect, curved stems 1–6 in. high. Ibid. 979 Parapholis strigosa. The sea hard-grass is a small, tufted annual with many slender, solitary, erect or bent stems 6–18 in. high.
1935A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 51/1 *Hard hat, a derby. 1945Baker Austral. Lang. 181 The Australian equivalents of what the Englishman calls a bowler and the American a derby. Here are our contributions: boxer,..hard hat, [etc.]. 1953Collective Bargaining Agreement Giant Yellowknife Gold Mines 3 Protective devices..shall be provided by the Company, but this shall not include personal necessities such as hard hats, hard toed boots and gloves. 1956H. M. Newell Dam xvii. 84 Workmen were cocooned in clothing till he couldn't recognize them... Beneath their hard-hats, stocking caps or scarves or kerchiefs tied under their chins. 1963A. Lubbock Austral. Roundabout 21, I was given a white tin hat, as it is a regulation that these safety helmets must be worn in the ‘hard hat’ areas of the mines. 1970Sunday Tel. 14 June 12/7 All the dangerous implications of ‘hard-hat’ demonstrations by flag-waving workers who see the anti-war movement as a betrayal. 1970Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 14 June 21/2 A ‘Hard Hat’ is a construction worker, but his helmet symbolises all those beefy blue-collar workers who have suddenly become the knuckleduster on the strong right arm of President Nixon's silent majority. 1972D. E. Westlake Cops & Robbers (1973) v. 63 It was one of those huge office buildings being constructed there, and the hardhats kept steady working away at it.
1597Gerarde Herbal ii. cli. §4. 434 S. Peters woort, Square or great S. Iohns grasse: and of some *Hardhay.
1895J. Roberts Diary 7/2, I had long ere this put on my own clothes..of the ‘masher’ type—white shirt, *hard-hitter, tight trousers, etc. 1907H. Lawson Romance of Swag (1948) 478 Jim sat in his shirt-sleeves, with his flat-brimmed, wire-bound, ‘hard-hitter’ hat on. 1924H. T. Gibson That Gibbie Galoot i. 1, I didn't mind so much when my former mates sat on my hard-hitter hat. 1932N. Scanlan Pencarrow xxiv. 242 Then hats. Of course they must have hard hitters..black bowler hats—hard hitters as they were usually called in the colony.
1891Labour Commission Gloss., *Hard Holing, hard strata underneath the coal which has to be holed or curved.
1597Gerarde Herbal App., *Hardhow is Marygolds.
1962F. I. Ordway et al. Basic Astronautics v. 176 (caption) Exterior view of Ranger lunar *hard lander.
1958Times 28 Mar. 10/3 The first [sc. landing on the moon] would be a simple shot, ending either in a ‘*hard’ (uncontrolled) landing or a circling of the moon. 1967Technology Week 23 Jan. 61/1 (Advt.), Grumman is engaged in major application research to develop vehicles for soft and hard landings on Mars.
1962Times Lit. Suppl. 21 Dec. 992/5 The ‘*hard-line’ periodical Literatura i zhizn, which has up to now dealt exclusively with the literature of the Russian Federation, will close down. 1964Economist 18 Jan. 206/1 CIA's..reputation as a ‘hard-line’ agency. 1965New Statesman 7 May 710/3 Among those whose toughness stiffened the rebels' will to resist were..the 50 or 60 ‘hard line’ communists. 1970Guardian 28 Oct. 4/6 He has not concealed his hardline views, but has avoided coming into direct public confrontation with the party leadership.
1963Sat. Rev. 25 May 22/2 The fact that war has now become an instrument of mutual suicide..has made no dent in the thinking of *hardliners. 1966Observer 17 Apr. 2/8 Vice-President Humphrey—widely regarded as a hard-liner on Asia. 1969Guardian 5 Mar. 8/1 Hardliners of the Right and the Left will say..that there is no middle way in Latin-American politics.
1889Cent. Dict., *Hard-nosed, in hunting, having little or no sense of smell: said of dogs. 1927Hollis St. Theatre Prog. (Boston) 19 Sept. Gloss., Hard nosed, stubborn. 1949Penguin New Writing XXXVIII. 49 And there there is a lock, too, with the saint who welched three times in charge of the keys, who can be trusted not to be too hard-nosed. 1965Economist 3 Apr. 27/2 Washington has got pretty ‘hard-nosed’ about criticism of its Congo policy. 1971New Society 7 Jan. 26/1 A whole host of prophetic ravers and hard-nosed technocrats. 1973Times 8 Feb. 23/2 Dolly's hard-nosed business approach to publishers probably did not have universal support.
1948Macintyre et al. in Vet. Rec. 28 Feb. 103/1 We now recognise a condition which we have tentatively called ‘*hard pad disease’. 1950A. C. Smith Dogs since 1900 35 The disease should be more properly termed canine encephalitis... It became known as ‘hard-pad’ because a curious symptom..is a hardening of the pads. 1958New Yorker 22 Feb. 31/3 Even the fact that foxes are now carrying a disease called hardpad is insufficient reason for shooting a fox.
1923‘B. M. Bower’ Parowan Bonanza iv. 56 Tommy's an old, *hard-rock man. 1926Amer. Speech II. 87/1 The old hardrock miners (now nearly extinct) were either single jackers or double jackers. 1949Chicago Daily News 9 Apr. 1/6 A machinist drilling with a crew of hardrock miners 75 feet below the surface. 1950W. R. Bird This is Nova Scotia 19 One night..he ran up against a hardrock from Spencer's Island, and when the fracas ended he had been completely thrashed. 1962K. Orvis Damned & Destroyed xvi. 119 A hard-rock by the name of Welch. 1965Globe & Mail (Toronto) 6 Jan. 24/9 Page [is] a hard-rock defensive back. 1967Boston Sunday Herald 26 Mar. i. 11/2 ‘Sing-Out’ shook Saunders Theater with its mesmeric hard-rock beat. 1969Rolling Stone 28 June 38/2 Drummer, hard-rock, blues, heavy, wants dependable group with horns.
1952Business Week 9 Aug. 40 A few months ago everyone had keyed himself up to the ‘*hard sell’. 1957‘E. McBain’ Con Man (1960) iii. 31 It's the hard sell and the soft sell, anywhere you go. 1958D. Delman (title) The hard sell. 1959Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Nov. 662/3 One does not see any examples..of what is called ‘hard-sell’ advertising. 1961Economist 14 Jan. 114/2 The need for the ‘hard sell’ is evident. 1963Guardian 16 Nov. 14/7 It is difficult to hard-sell the honest song the way they do the contemporary counterfeit. 1963New Scientist 19 Sept. 613/1 The reader cannot miss the hard-sell line of advertising copy. 1966Ibid. 21 July 125/1 Whatever one may think of the ‘hard-sell’ methods employed by big American corporations, they obviously work.
1960Economist 8 Oct. 158/2 The current slump in sales has also prompted many firms to return to the ‘*hard-selling’ practices of earlier recessions. Ibid. 172/1 The fuel-economy services offered by the coal and oil industries to sell their products may not prove serious competition for an independent organisation like Nifes, which may end up refereeing between them for hard-sold firms.
1955Times 6 July 10/1 The motorways are to be constructed to modern standards, with *hard shoulders of 9 ft. (land hardened and laid down for vehicles to get safely off the running lanes). 1959Ibid. 4 Nov. 9/7 The hard shoulder, used by vehicles for emergency stops, has collapsed at one point under the weight of a heavy lorry. 1973Scotsman 12 Jan. 11/4 Twenty-six of the accidents were on the inside lane or hard shoulder.
1944R.A.F. Jrnl. Aug. 259 Our lorries, drawn up on the *hardstanding ground, beside lines of gliders. 1951Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) iii. 22 Hard standing, a prepared hard surface for parking aircraft or heavy vehicles. 1956W. A. Heflin U.S.A.F. Dict. 245/1 Hardstand, any paved, compacted, or otherwise specially-prepared surface or area set up either for parking an airplane or ground vehicle, or for storing supplies and equipment. Ibid. 245/2 Hardstanding, the facility provided by hardstands. 1957Times 1 Mar. 9/6 These are certainly the aircraft which one sees on the hardstanding. 1960Guardian 19 May 1/6 The rural council intends to provide hard-standing for caravans. 1968Bucks Examiner 2 Aug. 2/7 Hardstanding for the parking of one coach or coaches.
1859W. S. Coleman Woodlands (1862) 74 Gigantic specimens of the *Hardtinder fungus (Boletus igniarius).
1949Frazee & Bedell Automotive Fundamentals 82 The convertible sedan features the same entrance and seating arrangements as are found in the regular *hard-top sedan. 1951Amer. Automobile Mar. 78/3 Plymouth has adopted entirely new designations... The coming hardtop will be called Belvidere. 1952Autocar 12 Dec. 1663/1 The hardtop style of roof is now used on all bodies, whether they have two or four doors. 1956Sat. Rev. 7 Apr. 40/2 The number of enclosed theatres now colloquially known as ‘hard tops’ declines. 1957Amer. Speech XXXII. 239 The conventional movie house under a roof is now referred to as a hardtop. 1959‘S. Ransome’ I'll die for You iv. 43 Two Burt Fishers..driving two identical Chevy hard-tops. 1967Guardian 3 Oct. 5/3 The price of the hard top has gone up to {pstlg}1,255.
1897Sears, Roebuck Catal. 186/1 This suit is made from genuine Michigan *hard twist cassimere. 1921T. Woodhouse Yarn Counts vii. 87 There are..exceptional degrees of twist, some..of which might exceed the value of the so-called hard twist. 1963A. J. Hall Textile Sci. iii. 114 In a similar manner much the same considerations apply in a multi-ply yarn if the two or more single yarns present are only slightly or highly twisted (often referred to as soft and hard twist) together.
1921Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §362 Breaker, *hard waste; hard waste tenter; feeds and operates machine which opens out hard cotton waste (waste from ring frames and from reeling and winding machines, cop bottoms and other thready waste) in preparation for re-spinning, or for use in manufacture of gun cotton.
1865Cornh. Mag. Apr. 467 The owner was walking on the beach, or *hardway, at the mouth of the river whither the Ellen was bound.
1812in H. Davy Elem. Agric. Chem. (1813) 133 *Hard wheat always sells at a higher price in the market than soft wheat. Ibid., The flour of hard wheat is in general superior to that made from soft. 1843Penny Cycl. XXVII. 301/2 There are three principal varieties... These are the hard wheats, the soft wheats, and the Polish wheats. 1856J. C. Morton Cycl. Agric. II. 1005 T[riticum] vulgare durum, hard African wheat. 1908Westm. Gaz. 1 July 6/3 The hard-wheat lands of Canada. 1971Times 23 Jan. 21/4 Britain should take commodities like oil, wine, hard wheat.
B. n. (elliptical use of the adj.).
1. a. [The adj. used absolutely.] That which is hard, something hard; hardship.
a1250Owl & Night 459 Ne recche ich noȝt of winteres reve; Wan ich i-s[e]o that cumeth that harde, Ich fare hom to min erde. c1350Will. Palerne 472 But ȝif myn hauteyn hert þe harde a-sente. 1795A. Shirrefs Sale Catal. 3 (E.D.D.), A plain North-country bard, Who fain would cripple through the hard. 1808Jamieson Dict. Scot. Lang., Hard, difficulty, hardship. To come through the hard, to encounter difficulties, to experience adverse fortune. 1858G. Roy Generalship vi. 101 The bits o' bairns run a great risk o' coming through the hard. 1902Westm. Gaz. 10 July 10/1 He had ‘come through the hards’ himself. 1904Daily Chron. 27 May 3/4 She is a lady who.. has given her life to nursing, and has gone through its hards.
b. Phrases. † of (by, with) hard, with difficulty. † on, with hard, with violence, fiercely. † at the hardest, at the utmost. let the hardest come to the hardest, when hard comes to hard: if, or when, the worst comes to the worst. in the hard, in hard cash, ‘down’.
1297R. Glouc. (1724) 17 Corineus ther with harde smot. 13..Guy Warw. (A.) 1726 Y com fram Lombardy Of hard y-schaped for þe maistrie. c1380Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. II. 100 Þes synneris bi hard ben turnid to God. 1382― Eccl. i. 15 Peruerted men of hard ben amendid. a1400–50Alexander 3004 He with hard schapid. a1450Knt. de la Tour (1868) 81 Atte the hardest, for a while, thou wilt not goo ferre. c1470Henry Wallace v. 845 He..Hewyt on hard with dyntis sad and sar. 1670Eachard Cont. Clergy 114 Let the hardest come to the hardest; if they can get by heart, Quid est fides? 1727P. Walker in Biog. Presbyt. (1827) I. 266 When Hard came to Hard, of Boots, Thumbikins, and Fire-matchs. 1830Galt Lawrie T. ii. i. (1849) 43 Four hundred and thirty-three dollars..counted out to me in the hard. 1864Carlyle Fredk. Gt. IV. 598 Now that hard had come to hard.
c. In various technical applications.
1855First Rep. Adulteration of Food 2 in Parl. Papers 1854–5 VIII. 221 Bread is adulterated with mashed potatoes, alum, ‘hards’, and sometimes..with sulphate of copper. 1921Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §238 Sider, hard (needles); burnishes sides of sewing machine needles in the hard, i.e., after hardening on revolving bob with oil and emery. 1937Archit. Rev. LXXXI. 269/2 Scrap lead may contain other metals, such as the tin in solder, resulting in what is known as ‘hards’. 1956F. S. Atkinson in D. L. Linton Sheffield 268 The ‘hards’ of the Barnsley seam and, to a lesser extent, of the Parkgate or Deep Hard, make an excellent locomotive coal. 1960Gloss. Coal Terms (B.S.I.) 12 Hards, a commercial term for the larger sizes of dull hard coal, in contrast to ‘brights’.
d. Also hard-on n. (and as adj.). An erection of the penis. slang.
1893Farmer & Henley Slang III. 269/1 Hard-bit (or bit of hard). 1. The penis in erection. Ibid. 270/1 Hard-on adj. phr., prick-proud. 1922Joyce Ulysses 527 What, boys? That give you a hardon? 1937Partridge Dict. Slang 375/2 Have a hard up, to have a priapism. 1966N. Behn Kremlin Let. i. iv. 56 When he wasn't plundering I suppose he was raping. He was more like a dog with a hard-on than a man with a mission. 1967A. Wilson No Laughing Matter iii. 377 He pulled up her red woollen dress..but still no hard. 1971B. W. Aldiss Soldier Erect 44 The bromide damped down desire—you really had to work to get a hard on, whereas before it always flipped up naturally. 1971B. Thornberry tr. Hansen & Jensen Little Red School-Bk. (ed. 2) 95 When boys get sexually excited, their prick goes stiff. This is called having an erection or ‘getting a hard on’. 1972Screw 12 June 10/2 Billy and I talked down our hardons and..went downstairs to load the truck.
†2. The hard part, the shell. Obs.
c1420Pallad. on Husb. viii. 135 Of squyllis whyte, al raw, taak of the hardis.
†3. Hard or firm ground. Obs.
1576in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 385 That hurst or bancke is of hard, and some gravell. 1629Drayner Conf. (1647) A iij b, The Inhabitants upon the Hards, and the Bankes within the Fennes.
4. A firm beach or foreshore; also, a sloping stone roadway or jetty at the water's edge for convenience in landing and putting out. (Hence, at Portsmouth, a street which adjoins the landing; also called the ‘Common Hard’.)
1838Dickens Nich. Nick. xxiii, [At Portsmouth] the Common Hard, a dingy street leading down to the dockyard. 1866Daily Tel. 11 Jan. 4/4 The loves of the ‘Hard’ are proverbially of brief duration. 1886R. C. Leslie Sea-painter's Log iv. 64 Well-known sheltered beaches, or ‘common hards’, as they were called. These hards still remain in old seaports. 1893Northumbld. Gloss., Hard, a firm foreshore, used for beaching vessels. 1896Charpentier Guide to Southsea & Portsmouth 76 The Hard is not a beautiful place now-a-days. 1897M. Pemberton in Windsor Mag. Jan. 268/1, I have started from the hard of the boathouse with fingers..benumbed.
5. U.S. Political slang.
a. = hardshell n. 3.
b. One of the supporters of Senator Benton of Missouri about 1850, so called from their advocacy of ‘hard money’.
1847Robb Squatter Life 91 (Farmer) Hards, softs, whigs and Tylerites were represented. 1888Bryce Amer. Commw. II. ii. xlvi. 203 The Hunkers and Barnburners who divided the Deomcratic party forty years ago, and subsequently passed into the ‘Hards’ and the ‘Softs’, began in genuine differences of opinion about canal management and other State questions.
6. A slang abbreviation of hard labour.
1890Globe 26 Feb. 1/4 Seven days' incarceration, with or without hard. 1896Daily News 19 Dec. 6/5 They don't hang them nowadays, but give them six months' hard.
7. hard and sharp, (?) a kind of bit. ? Obs.
1787‘G. Gambado’ Acad. Horsemen (1809) 36 note, Were a Pig to be driven in a hard and sharp, or a Weymouth.
8. Tobacco in a cake.
1865T. Archer Pauper, Thief & Convict v. 83 Peaceable companions..smoking pipefuls of ‘hard’ which they cut from a flat cake with their clasp-knives. 1898G. Bartram White-headed Boy iv. 102 Packages of shag tobacco, lumps of sweetened ‘hard’. Ibid. 105 Lind me a hand..with this lump o' harrd. 1898Daily News 24 Feb. 3/1 Mr. Atkins..pulled at his pipe until he floated off into dreamland on a whiff of ‘hard’.
Add:[A.] [V.] [23.] [b.] hard ticket slang (orig. U.S.), a ‘tough customer’; = tough nut s.v. tough a. 11 a; cf. hard case, sense 7 a above.
1903Farmer & Henley Slang VII. 120/1 A hard ticket,..an unscrupulous man; a ‘hard nut to crack’. 1904J. C. Lincoln Cap'n Eri xii. 223 ‘Old Laban Simpkins that lived 'round here one time,’ he said, ‘was a mighty hard ticket. Drank rum by the hogshead, pounded his wife till she left him, and was a tough nut gin'rally.’ 1985M. Munro Patter 70 Ticket, a person, as in a hard ticket (a tough guy).
▸ hard core adj. and n. (usu. as one word) orig. U.S., (a) adj. denoting harsh, aggressive, or extreme versions of various types of popular music (originally punk, now also rap, techno, etc.), typically faster, louder, or more experimental than related forms, and determinedly less mainstream; (b) n. any of various forms of popular music (often a variety of an established genre) regarded as particularly extreme, aggressive, or experimental.
1977Sniffin' Glue Aug.–Sept. 4 (advt.) They [sc. Rough Trade] are now trading in the best reggae records that can be found as well as the hardest core *hard core glue stained sounds of the new wave. 1981N.Y. Times 20 May c27/2 Predictably, the Los Angeles hardcore punk audience is beginning to have its doubts about X now that the group has performed on network television. 1984Washington Post 12 Nov. c6/4 Obscured by a cascade of stage-diving fans, Marginal Man and Government Issue played traditional D.C. hard-core featuring adolescent social comment atop a breathtakingly fast guitar attack. 1992i-D July 13/2 This has not gone down too well with those labels promoting ‘jungle techno’ as the new frontier of hardcore. 1995Village Voice (N.Y.) 13 June 68/3 By the Time I get to Colorado is sly, dense, and cryptic—a veritable codex of appropriated signs and signifiers: guns from hardcore rap; fire and bat-winged angels from heavy metal; the anarchy symbols from punk. 2001M. Azerrad Our Band could be your Life x. 349 He insisted on playing guitar on the EP's ‘Video Prick’, festooning this minute and a half of standard hardcore thrash with flashy guitar licks of the ‘widdly-diddly’ variety.
▸ hard disk drive n. Computing = hard drive n. at Additions.
1975Computer Design June 90 (heading) Single, *hard disc drive for small computers competes with multiple-disc flexible units. 1989Music Technol. Oct. 16/3 One 3.5{pp} disk drive is standard, along with ports for a second floppy and external hard disk drive. 1995M. Lewis Singapore: Rough Guide 97/1 The state presently produces more than half the world's hard disk drives. 2000Sci. Amer. May 60/1 This basic design traces its origins to the first hard-disk drive—The Random Access Method of Accounting and control (RAMAC)—which IBM introduced in 1956.
▸ hard drive n. Computing a high-capacity, self-contained storage device containing a read-write mechanism together with one or more hard disks inside a sealed unit; (occas. also) the disk drive on its own.
1982Computerworld 29 Nov. 82, 83-key keyboard with numeric key pad and interface ports for video, printer and Winchester *hard drive. 1990Computer Buyer's Guide & Handbk. 8 vii. 64/2 Keep in mind, however, that many IDE drives won't permit a system to use two hard drives. 1995Wall St. Jrnl. 8 Feb. b9/1 The files are too big. You never have enough space on your hard drive. 2001Smarthouse Feb.–Mar. 81/2 There's 12GBs of hard-drive to play around with and a memory of 64MB SDRAM.
▸ hard power n. a coercive approach to international relations, often involving military action; cf. soft power at soft adj. Additions.
1990J. S. Nye Bound to Lead i. 33 If it can help support institutions that encourage other states to channel or limit their activities in ways the dominant state prefers, it may not need as many costly exercises of coercive or *hard power in bargaining situations. 2004Foreign Policy July–Aug. 66/2 By cleverly deploying both its hard power and its sensitive side, the European Union (EU) has become more effective—and more attractive—than the United States on the catwalk of diplomatic clout.
▪ II. hard, adv.
Forms: see the adj.
[OE. hearde = OS. hardo, OHG. harto (MHG. harte), f. hard a.]
In a hard manner.
1. a. With effort, energy, or violence; strenuously, earnestly, vigorously; violently, fiercely. In early use, sometimes = intensely, exceedingly, extremely.
c1000ælfric Hom. II. 256 Him hearde ðyrste. a1200Moral Ode 157 Þer we muȝen bon eþe offerd and herde [v.r. harde] us adreden. c1290S. Eng. Leg. I. 28/81 Huy tormenteden him harde and stronge. c1330R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 33 Yit þe kyng Anlaf so hard gan he chace. c1340Cursor M. 20736 (Trin.) Þidurwarde þei hyȝed hem harde. c1400Destr. Troy 8215 Ector..macchit hym so harde. c1440Gesta Rom. ii. 5 (Harl. MS.) Grete labour þat he hadde on the day afore made him to slepe hard. 1535Coverdale 2 Chron. xviii. 33 A certayne man bended his bowe harde. c1586C'tess Pembroke Ps. liv, Strangers..Who hunt me hard. 1634Peacham Gentl. Exerc. 68 Presse it downe hard. 1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 338 He strikes the Gong as hard as he can. 1722De Foe Col. Jack (1840) 128 We worked hard, lodged hard, and fared hard. 1776Foote Capuchin i. Wks. 1799 II. 388 His majesty looked at me very hard. 1860Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. xi, Pulling ‘hard all’ from Sandford to Iffley, and then again from Iffley over the regular course. 1867Trollope Chron. Barset II. xlvi. 16 He..bid the cabman drive hard.
b. Of the weather, wind, snow, rain, frost, etc.
13..Sir Beues 4580 (MS. A.) Þe wind blew hardde wiþ gret rage. 1628Digby Voy. Medit. 51 It blew hard all night. 1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 13 It rained very hard. 1798Nelson 28 Dec. in Nicolas Disp. III. 212 The next day it blew harder than I ever experienced since I have been at sea. 1864Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 237 If it..snows as hard there as here. Mod. Last night it froze hard.
c. Very, extremely. U.S. colloq.
1850N. Kingsley Diary (1914) 97 Mr. Hopkins is hard sick. a1910‘O. Henry’ Trimmed Lamp (1916) 16 He isn't a millionaire so hard that you could notice it, anyhow.
2. a. So as to bring or involve oppression, pain, trouble, difficulty, or hardship; severely; cruelly, harshly. See also hard-set 1.
c1205Lay. 8814 Ich wes..hærde [c 1275 herde] biðrungen. a1300Cursor M. 3470 Als womman þat ful hard was stad. a1340Hampole Psalter vii. 12 Þe harder will he punysch. 1393Langl. P. Pl. C. i. 28 Al..lyueden ful harde, In hope to haue a gode ende. c1460Towneley Myst. (Surtees) 59 Fulle hard halden ar we here. 1579–80North Plutarch 124 (R.) The poor geese were so hard handled. 1699W. Dampier Voy. II. ii. 38 Having fared very hard already. 1712Addison Spect. No. 271 ⁋4, I shall be very hard put to it to bring my self off handsomly. 1771Junius Lett. l. 260, I will not bear hard upon your..friend. 1885Daily News 20 Feb. 5/6 Hard put to it to veil their feelings.
†b. With an uneasy pace. Obs.
1583Hollyband Campo di Fior 283 He troteth hard, He will breake all my bones. 1600Shakes. A.Y.L. iii. ii. 331 He [Time] trots hard with a yong maid, between the contract of her marriage, and the day it is solemnizd. 1681Lond. Gaz. No. 1649/8 Dark Brown Gelding..Trots very hard. 1688R. Holme Armoury ii. vii. 150 A trotting horse, when he sets hard, and goes of an uneasy pace. 1824Scott St. Ronan's vii, I am heated, and my pony trotted hard.
c. to go hard with (a person): to fare ill with him, to prove to his serious hurt or disadvantage; with but, introducing a statement of what will happen unless prevented by overpowering difficulties. See also go v.
1530Palsgr. 550/1 It shall go harde but I wyll fynde one mater or other to breake hym of his purpose. 1591Shakes. Two Gent. i. i. 86 It shall goe hard but ile proue it by another. 1596― Tam. Shr. iv. iv. 109 It shall goe hard if Cambio goe without her. 1596― Merch. V. iii. ii. 292 It will goe hard with poore Anthonio. 1705Hickeringill Priest-cr. iv. 231 Not a Farthing abated..which goes hard in Hard-times. 1809W. Irving Knickerb. (1861) 87 It shall go hard but I will make it afford them entertainment. 1855Prescott Philip II, i. iii. 51 It might have gone hard with the envoy, had the mistake not been discovered.
3. With difficulty, hardly; scarcely. to die hard: see die v.1 3.
1382Wyclif Luke xviii. 24 How hard thei that han richessis schulen entre in to the rewme of God. 1536Latimer Serm. bef. Convoc. Wks. I. 41 Now hard and scant ye may find any corner..where many of his children be not. 1604Shakes. Oth. i. ii. 10 With the little godlinesse I haue I did full hard forbeare him. 1626Bacon Sylva §830 Solid bodies foreshow rain, as boxes and pegs of wood when they draw and wind hard. 1810Scott Lady of L. iii. xi, And hard his labouring breath he drew. 1811–68[see die v.1 3]. 1888Bryce Amer. Commw. III. lxxxiii. 100 Now, though it dies hard, its monopoly of office is departing.
4. Firmly, securely; tightly; fast. Now rare.
a1225Juliana 59 And bunden hire þerto hearde and heteueste. c1400Gamelyn 346 Gamelyn was i-take and ful hard i-bounde. c1440Promp. Parv. 227/2 Harde sett (P. or obstynat) yn wyckydnesse..obstinatus. 1500–20Dunbar Poems xxxii. 48 All the hollis wes stoppit hard. 1596Spenser F.Q. v. iv. 22 With both his hands behinde him pinnoed hard. 1602Shakes. Ham. ii. i. 87 He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard. 1703Moxon Mech. Exerc. 206 A Pin..to fit hard and stiff into the round Hole. 1833L. Ritchie Wand. by Loire 241 Bound hard and fast.
5. a. So as to be hard; to hardness. (Often qualifying a pa. pple. See also 8 d.)
1340Hampole Pr. Consc. 6455 Þus may men se by an egge hard dight, How heven and erthe and helle standes right. c1465Eng. Chron., Hen. VI (Camden 1856) 55 The Thamise and othir grete rivers were so hard frosen that hors and cariage myȝte passe ovir. 1563W. Fulke Meteors (1640) 10 Being very neere compact, and as it were hard tempered together. 1632J. Lee Short Survey 12 Lapland, where all rivers..and lakes are hard frozen. 1766Lane in Phil. Trans. LVII. 456 A piece of common tobacco⁓pipe hard-baked. 1854Ronalds & Richardson Chem. Technol. (ed. 2) I. 124 The coke should be hard burnt.
b. On a hard surface, floor, etc.
1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iv. (1586) 161 The harder they lie, the sooner they fatte. 1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 237 That so he may lie soft and stand hard. 1886Stevenson Kidnapped xviii. 173 ‘Ye maun lie bare and hard, and brook many an empty belly.’
6. a. In close proximity, of time or place; close. hard upon (on), close before or after so as to press upon. Now chiefly in to run (a person) hard. See also hard by.
c1410Love Bonavent. Mirr. xxviii. (Sherard MS.), Answerde harde ageyn reprouynge hem. 1506Sir R. Guylforde Pilgr. (Camden) 62 [We] laye amost harde abrode the grete vggly rokkes. 1526Tindale Acts xviii. 7 Whose house ioyned harde to the sinagoge. 1535Coverdale Job xvii. 1, I am hard at deathes dore. ― Ps. xxi[i]. 11 Trouble is harde at honde. 1582N. Lichefield tr. Castanheda's Conq. E. Ind. xii. 29 b, The King..came in a great boate hard to our Fleete. 1598R. Barckley Felic. Man (1631) 519 The shee-wolfe..whose covetousnesse is followed hard at the heeles with envy. 1771Foote Maid of B. iii. Wks. 1799 II. 230 You are hard upon sixty. 1813Scott Trierm. ii. Interl. i, While conjuring wand Of English oak is hard at hand. 1864D. G. Mitchell Sev. Stor. 285 It was now hard upon three o'clock. 1865Thackeray in Daily News (1896) 27 Jan. 4/7 Who will one of these days run you hard for the Presidentship. 1897F. Hall in N. & Q. 17 Apr. 310/1 Incongruity which trenches hard on nonsense.
b. Naut. Expressing the carrying of an action to its extreme limits, as in hard-a-lee, hard-a-port, hard-a-starboard, hard-a-weather: see the second elements. (Hence hard-a-ported, hard-a-starboarded pa. pples., put hard a-port, a-starboard. Also hard-a-weather adj., able to stand the utmost rigours of the weather.)
1549Compl. Scot. vi. 40 Hail doune the steir burde lufe harde a burde. 1679Sturmy Mariner's Mag. (1684) 15 The helm is hard aweather. 1707Lond. Gaz. No. 4380/2 We clap'd our Helm hard a Starboard. 1800Weems Washington xi. (1877) 151 Washington then seized the helm, with a gallant hard-a-lee. 1848Blackw. Mag. LXIII. 87 [He] wore a remarkably hard-a-weather pilot-coat. 1883Law Times Rep. XLIX. 332/2 The Margaret..had her..helm hard-a-starboarded. 1892Ibid. LXVII. 251/1 The pilot ordered the helm of the Merchant Prince to be ported, and shortly afterwards to be hard-a-ported.
†7. Parsimoniously. Obs. rare.
1711Steele Spect. No. 155 ⁋3 The Rogues buy as hard as the plainest and modestest Customers they have.
8. In Comb., qualifying ppl. adjs., to which hard is always united by a hyphen when they are used attributively, and generally also when they are used predicatively unless the order is reversed; thus, ‘A hard-boiled egg’, ‘Do you prefer it hard-boiled?’ ‘Will you have it boiled hard?’. The advb. is used thus in nearly all its senses, and the number of combinations is unlimited. Examples:
a. With effort, strenuously, violently, etc., as hard-biting, hard-bit, hard-contested, hard-drinking, hard-driven, hard-driving, hard-fought, hard-hitting, hard-hurled, hard-ridden, hard-riding, hard-running, hard-sought, hard-swearing, hard-trotting, hard-worked, hard-working, etc.;
b. With hardship, severely, etc., as hard-besetting, hard-bested, hard-bred, hard-faring, hard-judging, hard-kept, hard-lived, hard-living, hard-looking, hard-pressed, hard-pressing, hard-tried, hard-used, etc.; hard-hit, severely stricken by misfortune, grief, or disaster; deeply in love; hard-pushed, in difficulties; hard run U.S., in difficulties or want, esp. with regard to money; hard-wearing, able to stand a considerable amount of wear.
c. With difficulty, as hard-acquired, hard-bought, hard-earned, hard-gained, hard-got, hard-learnt, hard-won, hard-wrung, etc.
d. So as to be hard, tight, etc., as hard-baked, hard-beaten, hard-braced, hard-cured, hard-dried, hard-pressed, etc. hard-bound orig. U.S., (of books) bound in boards; hard-cased U.S. = hard-bound.
e. hard-bound, slow in action; costive, constipated; hard-drawn, drawn when cold, as wire; † hard-holding, close-fisted, niggardly; † hard-laced, strait-laced, strict and precise; hard-spun, tightly twisted in spinning.
1858W. Ellis Vis. Madagascar viii. 206 *Hard-baked reddish earth.
1592Shakes. Ven. & Ad. 985 O *hard-believing love, how strange it seems Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
1634Milton Comus 857 In *hard-besetting need.
1886Kipling Departm. Ditties (ed. 2) 108 What a *hard-bit gang were we.
1741Richardson Pamela (1824) I. 157 The *hard-bought victory.
1946Publishers' Weekly 5 Oct. 1971/1 Several publishers of *hard-bound reprints offer new series or expanded ones. 1952Amer. Speech XXVII. 148 The ubiquitous ‘paper-back’..is undoubtedly the cause of a reversal in bookbinding nomenclature. Whereas the board-bound used to be the normal and expected kind of book it is now necessary to use the qualifying adjectives hard-bound, hard-cased, or hard-covered when one refers to any book not in paper covers. 1959Times Lit. Suppl. 6 Nov. p. xxxviii/4 It is estimated that more than 233,000,000 copies were sold in 1957, as against 32,000,000 hard-bound adult trade books.
1735Pope Ep. Arbuthnot 182 The Bard..strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year.
1632Brome Northern Lasse i. i. Wks. 1873 I. 1 Some *Hard-bred Citizen.
1951Publishers' Weekly 2 June 2357 Using the conventional method, eight to ten hours is a fair estimate of the time required to build in each batch of *hard-cased books. It takes that long for paste to set and hinges to be formed.
1780Nairne in Phil. Trans. LXX. 334 A piece of *hard-drawn iron wire.
1875Howells Foregone Concl. viii. 119 *Hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-swearing, foxhunting English parsons.
1902‘Mark Twain’ in North Amer. Rev. Dec. 762 The poor and the *hard-driven. 1949R. K. Merton Social Theory (1951) 17 A small, hard-driven group of professors.
1951M. McLuhan Mech. Bride 157/1 The cowboy is as non-erotic as the *hard-driving executive.
1770Burke Pres. Discont. (T.), To take their *hard-earned bread from the lowest offices. 1847–9Helps Friends in C. Ser. i. (1854) I. 28 The hard-earned gains of civil society.
1864Burton Scot Abr. I. ii. 91 The *hard-fighting clans near the Border.
a1666Fanshaw On Ld. Strafford's Trial (T.), [The] *hard-fought field. 1839Thirlwall Greece VI. 175 Defeated in a hard-fought battle.
1860‘Old Shekarry’ Hunting Grounds of Old World i. 19, I feel sure he is *hard hit. Ibid. 20 A bright crimson pool..showed that he was hard hit. 1884G. C. Davies Peter Penniless xix. 145 Hard Hit. 1891M. E. Braddon Gerard xxix, You've been hard hit. 1909H. G. Wells Ann Veronica ix, She saw her aunt in tears, her father white-faced and hard hit.
1839Q. Rev. LXIII. 25 Our *hard-hitting Irish labourers. 1889Spectator 12 Oct., He was swift, adroit, hard-hitting. 1955Times 16 July 5/3 His plea was for an immediately available joint military force of hard-hitting character. 1962Christian Cent. 26 Sept. 1164/1 Hard-hitting new book and films to help you combat communism.
1876G. M. Hopkins Poems (1918) 22 A released shower, let flash to the shine, not a lightning of fire *hard-hurled.
1580Sidney Arcadia (1622) 206 Like a *hard-kept warde new come to his lands.
1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 194 So sparyng a niggard, and *hardelaced.
1878J. P. Hopps Princ. Relig. iv. 17 All life's hard-earned virtues and *hard-learnt lessons.
1921Galsworthy To Let ii. i, A look of life *hard-lived.
1884‘Mark Twain’ Huck. Finn 89 A couple of mighty *hard-looking strangers. 1915A. Conan Doyle Valley of Fear v. 79 They were a mighty hard-looking crowd.
1825Mill Speech in Autobiogr. (1924) 282 The Lion, finding himself *hard-pressed, called together the aristocracy of the forest. 1891Hard-pressed [see pressed ppl. a.1]. 1961New Scientist 16 Mar. 664/3 Hard-pressed managers and engineers can hope to read only a tiny fraction of it.
1938New Statesman 20 Aug. 282/1 Mr. Lennox Robinson..said that..it was not fair to press the lecturer. But the S.J...was a *hard-pressing man. 1950D. Gascoyne Vagrant 43 And the heart's slowly dulled By the hard-pressing years.
1807J. Barlow Columb. vii. 259 To aid her *hard-pusht powers. 1834[Asa Greene] Perils of Pearl St. 123 (Bartlett), We began to be hard pushed. Our credit, however was still fair.
1852R. S. Surtees Sponge's Sp. Tour iv. 17 A *hard-riding..sort of sportsman.
1822J. Fowler Jrnl. 22 June (1898) 163 We have left them all behind, and will be *hard run for meat. 1834Deb. Congress U.S. 10 Mar. 848 Men, I say, who, to use the mercantile phrase, are ‘hard run’ to make ends meet, and only wanting an honorable excuse to fail. 1845N.Y. Tribune 1 Nov. (Bartlett), We knew the Tammany party were hard run; but we did not know it was reduced to the necessity of stealing the principles of Nativism. 1865Rossetti Let. 27 July (1965) II. 562 I'm dreffle hard run for tin till the end of next week when I shall have some. 1939C. Morley Kitty Foyle 324 Everybody there looked so hard-run it cheered me up.
1952C. Day Lewis tr. Virgil's Aeneid v. 98 The *hard-running waves off Malea. 1963Times 29 May 3/5 Hard-running fairways and small, sometimes tricky greens.
1909J. Jusserand Lit. Hist. Eng. People III. 162 His [sc. Shakespeare's] most wonderful inventions were not *hard-sought finds.
1906Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 864/2 s.v. Yarn, The yarn is defined as soft spun, medium spun, *hard spun, according to the amount of twist it has received.
1906Daily Chron. 1 Oct. 3/2 Its purpose of helping the *hard-tried bookseller.
1664Pepys Diary (1879) III. 27 A *hard-trotting sorrell horse.
1906Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 833/1 s.v. Warp, The term applied to the series of spun threads, usually stronger and *harder twisted than the weft. 1962J. T. Marsh Self-Smoothing Fabrics xi. 168 Cotton voiles with their hard-twisted yarns may be impregnated on a mangle whose bowls have been wrapped with a fine cloth.
1950Mind LIX. 407 Difficulties which can in one sense of a *hard-used word be called ‘philosophical’.
1909Daily Chron. 11 June 7/5 Everything possible to be done is achieved in the endeavour to make it *hard-wearing. 1928Observer 1 Apr. 13 [This] Lingerie is amazingly hard-wearing.
a1845Hood The Mary 58 *Hardwon wages, on the perilous sea.
1894‘Mark Twain’ in Century Mag. Jan. 330/1 He was coarsely fed and *hard worked. a1930D. H. Lawrence Phoenix (1936) 74 The busy, hard-worked-looking woman.
1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1790) II. 224 (Jod.) The *hardworking wives of the peasants. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxviii. 371 Five nights' camping out in the snow, with hard-working days between.
1605Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iii. iv. Captaines 786 A rude Clown, whose *hard-wrought hands, before Nothing but spades, coulters, and bils had bore.
▸ hard done by: unfairly or harshly treated; cf. to do by—— at do v. Phrasal verbs 1.
1861‘G. Eliot’ Silas Marner xxi. 358 You were hard done by that once, Master Marner, and it seems as you'll never know the rights of it. 1898E. N. Westcott David Harum (1900) xx. 197 Mebbe I've ben hard done by all my hull life. 1959P. Bull I Know Face i. 24 We..all..felt hard done-by. 1989R. MacNeil Wordstruck i. 26 If I ever thought I was hard done by, I had only to compare the travails of the boys we encountered in Dickens. 2004Herald Sun (Melbourne) (Nexis) 12 July 19 But, if he felt hard done by, Beckham could at least console himself with the knowledge that it could have been much worse.
▪ III. † hard, v. Obs.
[OE. heardian = OS. hardôn (MDu., MLG., Du., LG. harden), OHG. hartên and hartôn (MHG. harten), orig. intrans., f. hard- adj. hard; but already in late OE. used also for the cognate trans. vb. hięrdan, hyrdan = OFris. hęrda, OS. gi-hęrdian, OHG. hartian, hęrtan, ON. hęrða, Goth. ga-hardjan to make hard.]
1. intr. To be or become hard. lit. and fig.
c1000Sax. Leechd. I. 76 Seoð þonne þa wyrte oð þæt heo heardiᵹe. a1225Ancr. R. 220 Ure Louerd spareð a uormest þe ȝunge & þe feble..Auh so sone so he isihð ham hearden, he let arisen & awakenen weorre. 1382Wyclif Ps. lxxxix. 6 Inwardli harde he and waxe drie. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. lxi. (1495) 898 Wexe meltyth..in hete and hardyth in colde. c1440Promp. Parv. 227/1 Hardyn, or growyn harde, dureo, induresco.
2. trans. To make hard, harden.
a. lit.
c1000Sax. Leechd. II. 188 Þæt wyrmð and heardaþ þone maᵹan. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. vii. xiv. (1495) 233 Medycynes that drye and harde. c1420Pallad. on Husb. i. 436. When that is drie..harde hit wel. c1440Promp. Parv. 227/1 Hardyn, or make harde, induro. 1491Caxton Vitas Patr. (W. de W. 1495) i. xxxiii. 28 a/1 A salte humour, the whyche by the hete of the sonne..was harded as yce.
b. fig. To deprive of feeling or emotion; to render callous, obstinate, or obdurate.
c1205Lay. 5871 And auer alc god mon harde [c 1275 hardi] hine sulue. c1380Wyclif Sel. Wks. III. 324 Here⁓tikis hardid in here Errour. 1382― Exod. xiv. 8 The Lord hardide the herte of Pharao. c1440J. Capgrave Life St. Kath. iv. 1098 Soo ar ȝe harded with obstinacye. a1618Sylvester Job Triumph. i. 723 He sees their harts yt hard them In Guiles and Wiles.
Hence harded ppl. a.; harding vbl. n. and ppl. a.
c1386Chaucer Sqr.'s T. 237 Hardyng of metal. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. vii. lxx. (1495) 291 Hardyng medycyne rennyth the matere. 1412–20Lydg. Chron. Troy iii. xxvii, His herded herte of stele. 1620Shelton Quix. IV. xxvi. 205 Bodies of harded Cork trees.
▪ IV. hard(e
obs. pa. tense of hear; obs. f. hoard. |