See Also: FLEXIBILITY/INFLEXIBILITY

1. (Bread …) as hard as pumice —Mary Stewart
2. Be like a rocky head and on which the waves break incessantly, but it stands fast and the waters sink to rest —Marcus Aurelius
3. (Continue) firm and unmoved as a column —James Boswell
4. Firm as alabaster —Henry James
5. Firm as a monkey’s tail —Creole expression

   Before Jean Claude Duvalier’s Haitian regime toppled in 1983, he was quoted as saying, “I’m in control … firm as a monkey’s tail.”

6. [Figure] firm as an apple —H. E. Bates
7. (My heart is) firm as a stone —The Holy Bible/Job
8. Firm as morality —Thorn Gunn
9. [A distant ridge] firm as solid crystal —William Wordsworth
10. Firm standing like a stone wall —Bernard Bee

    The term “To stonewall” comes from Bee’s simile about Jackson at first battle of Bull Run.

11. Hard and dry as rustling corn —Dame Edith Sitwell
12. [A trained gangster] hard and solid, like a shark —John Malcolm
13. Hard as a billiard ball —Anon
14. (Soil) hard as a bowling alley —E. B. White
15. Hard as a bulletproof vest —Russell Baker, New York Times, May 21, 1986

    To put this in full context: “Americans like their fish, and fish roe too, fried hard as a bulletproof vest.”

16. Hard as a heavy-duty canvas fire-hose —Sharon Olds

    In the poem from which this is taken, Six-Year-Old Boy, the fire-hose is used to describe a small boy waking up to urinate.

17. Hard as an egg at Easter —Michael Denham
18. (His body thin and stringy but) hard as armor plating —Clive Cussler
19. Hard as a stone pillow —Anon

    Back in the T’ang Dynasty chen or ceramic pillows were used during as well as after life as a means for keeping the eyes clear and preserving sight.

20. (The wheel of your life is … as) hard as caked clay which nothing can grow in —Amy Lowell
21. (Words as) hard as cannon-balls —Ralph Waldo Emerson
22. Hard as corkwood —Miguel de Cervantes
23. (Felt as) hard as dried mud —James Crumley

    The descriptive frame of reference is the face of a man who’s been beaten up.

24. (Her breasts were small but looked) hard as green apples —Anon
25. Hard as the knots in a whip —Yehuda Amichai
26. Hard as nails —Charles Dickens

    This now commonplace simile may well precede its appearance in Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Other writers who’ve used it since have modified and extended it, e.g.: “Hard and sharp as nails,” attributed to S. J. Weyman and “Hard as nails and sour as vinegar,” attributed to George Beillairs.

27. Hardened and set like concrete —Karl Shapiro
28. My ass … was tight as a bull’s in a thunderstorm —Lael Tucker Wertenbaker
29. (His jaw was) rigid as a horseshoe —Flannery O’Connor
30. Rigid as a starfish —Joyce Cary
31. Rigid as bamboo —Diane Ackerman
32. Rigid as iron post —Marge Piercy
33. (He went as) rigid as Lenin’s mummy —Joseph Wambaugh
34. Rigid as though bound and gagged —Eudora Welty
35. She’s hard as steel —William Shakespeare
36. (Heat) solid as a hickory stick —Eudora Welty
37. Solid as a hill —William Boyd
38. Stand firm as a tower, which never shakes its top, no matter what winds are blowing —Dante Alighieri
39. Stiff as a garden hose left out in December —Will Weaver

    In Weaver’s novel, Red Earth, White Earth, the comparison is used to describe the physical condition of a man who’s had a stroke.

40. (His head,) stiff as a scarab —Theodore Roethke
41. Stiff as chessmen —Elizabeth Bowen
42. Stiff as icicles —Anon
43. Stiff as sticks —Dan Jacobson
44. [Bed sheet] stretched tight as a drumhead —Walker Percy
45. (Backside) sturdy as baking soda biscuits —Curtis White
46. Taut as a sail —Barbara Howes
47. Taut as a tent —Karl Shapiro
48. (Neck tendons) taut as banjo strings —Derek Walcott
49. Tight as a scout’s knot —Lorrie Moore