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Definitions for: Hard
[adv] with effort or force or vigor; "the team played hard"; "worked hard all day"; "pressed hard on the lever"; "hit the ball hard"; "slammed the door hard"
[adv] to the full extent possible; all the way; "hard alee"; "the ship went hard astern"; "swung the wheel hard left"
[adv] slowly and with difficulty; "prejudices die hard"
[adv] causing great damage or hardship; "industries hit hard by the depression"; "she was severely affected by the bank's failure"
[adv] with firmness; "held hard to the railing"
[adv] earnestly or intently; "thought hard about it"; "stared hard at the accused"
[adv] with pain or distress or bitterness; "he took the rejection very hard"
[adv] very near or close in space or time; "it stands hard by the railroad tracks"; "they were hard on his heels"; "a strike followed hard upon the plant's opening"
[adv] into a solid condition; "concrete that sets hard within a few hours"
[adv] indulging excessively; "he drank heavily"
[adj] not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure; "a difficult task"; "nesting places on the cliffs are difficult of access"; "difficult times"; "a difficult child"; "found himself in a difficult situation"; "why is it so hard for you to keep a secret?"
[adj] characterized by toilsome effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort; "worked their arduous way up the mining valley"; "a grueling campaign"; "hard labor"; "heavy work"; "heavy going"; "spent many laborious hours on the project"; "set a punishing pace"
[adj] dried out; "hard dry rolls left over from the day before"
[adj] unfortunate or hard to bear; "had hard luck"; "a tough break"
[adj] not yielding to pressure or easily penetrated; "hard as rock"
[adj] metaphorically hard; "a hard fate"; "took a hard look"; "a hard bargainer"; "a hard climb"
[adj] of speech sounds
[adj] having a high alcoholic content; "hard liquor"
[adj] very strong or vigorous; "strong winds"; "a hard left to the chin"; "a knockout punch"; "a severe blow"
[adj] having undergone fermentation; "hard cider"
Webster (1913) Definition: Hard, a. [Compar. Harder; superl. Hardest.] [OE.
heard, AS. heard; akin to OS. & D. heard, G. hart, OHG.
harti, Icel. har?r, Dan. haard, Sw. h[*a]rd, Goth. hardus,
Gr.? strong, ?, ?, strength, and also to E. -ard, as in
coward, drunkard, -crat, -cracy in autocrat, democracy; cf.
Skr. kratu strength, ? to do, make. Cf. Hardy.]
1. Not easily penetrated, cut, or separated into parts; not
yielding to pressure; firm; solid; compact; -- applied to
material bodies, and opposed to soft; as, hard wood; hard
flesh; a hard apple.
2. Difficult, mentally or judicially; not easily apprehended,
decided, or resolved; as a hard problem.
The hard causes they brought unto Moses. --Ex.
xviii. 26.
In which are some things hard to be understood. --2
Peter iii. 16.
3. Difficult to accomplish; full of obstacles; laborious;
fatiguing; arduous; as, a hard task; a disease hard to
cure.
4. Difficult to resist or control; powerful.
The stag was too hard for the horse. --L'Estrange.
A power which will be always too hard for them.
--Addison.
5. Difficult to bear or endure; not easy to put up with or
consent to; hence, severe; rigorous; oppressive;
distressing; unjust; grasping; as, a hard lot; hard times;
hard fare; a hard winter; hard conditions or terms.
I never could drive a hard bargain. --Burke.
6. Difficult to please or influence; stern; unyielding;
obdurate; unsympathetic; unfeeling; cruel; as, a hard
master; a hard heart; hard words; a hard character.
7. Not easy or agreeable to the taste; stiff; rigid;
ungraceful; repelling; as, a hard style.
Figures harder than even the marble itself.
--Dryden.
8. Rough; acid; sour, as liquors; as, hard cider.
9. (Pron.) Abrupt or explosive in utterance; not aspirated,
sibilated, or pronounced with a gradual change of the
organs from one position to another; -- said of certain
consonants, as c in came, and g in go, as distinguished
from the same letters in center, general, etc.
10. Wanting softness or smoothness of utterance; harsh; as, a
hard tone.
11. (Painting)
(a) Rigid in the drawing or distribution of the figures;
formal; lacking grace of composition.
(b) Having disagreeable and abrupt contrasts in the
coloring or light and shade.
Hard cancer, Hard case, etc. See under Cancer, Case,
etc.
Hard clam, or Hard-shelled clam (Zo["o]l.), the guahog.
Hard coal, anthracite, as distinguished from bituminous or
soft coal.
Hard and fast. (Naut.) See under Fast.
Hard finish (Arch.), a smooth finishing coat of hard fine
plaster applied to the surface of rough plastering.
Hard lines, hardship; difficult conditions.
Hard money, coin or specie, as distinguished from paper
money.
Hard oyster (Zo["o]l.), the northern native oyster. [Local,
U. S.]
Hard pan, the hard stratum of earth lying beneath the soil;
hence, figuratively, the firm, substantial, fundamental
part or quality of anything; as, the hard pan of
character, of a matter in dispute, etc. See Pan.
Hard rubber. See under Rubber.
Hard solder. See under Solder.
Hard water, water, which contains lime or some mineral
substance rendering it unfit for washing. See Hardness,
3.
Hard wood, wood of a solid or hard texture; as walnut, oak,
ash, box, and the like, in distinction from pine, poplar,
hemlock, etc.
In hard condition, in excellent condition for racing;
having firm muscles;-said of race horses.
Syn: Solid; arduous; powerful; trying; unyielding; stubborn;
stern; flinty; unfeeling; harsh; difficult; severe;
obdurate; rigid. See Solid, and Arduous.
Hard, adv. [OE. harde, AS. hearde.]
1. With pressure; with urgency; hence, diligently; earnestly.
And prayed so hard for mercy from the prince.
--Dryden.
My father Is hard at study; pray now, rest yourself.
--Shak.
2. With difficulty; as, the vehicle moves hard.
3. Uneasily; vexatiously; slowly. --Shak.
4. So as to raise difficulties. `` The guestion is hard
set''. --Sir T. Browne.
5. With tension or strain of the powers; violently; with
force; tempestuously; vehemently; vigorously;
energetically; as, to press, to blow, to rain hard; hence,
rapidly; as, to run hard.
6. Close or near.
Whose house joined hard to the synagogue. --Acts
xviii.7.
Hard by, near by; close at hand; not far off. ``Hard by a
cottage chimney smokes.'' --Milton.
Hard pushed, Hard run, greatly pressed; as, he was hard
pushed or hard run for time, money, etc. [Colloq.]
Hard up, closely pressed by want or necessity; without
money or resources; as, hard up for amusements. [Slang]
Note: Hard in nautical language is often joined to words of
command to the helmsman, denoting that the order should
be carried out with the utmost energy, or that the helm
should be put, in the direction indicated, to the
extreme limit, as, Hard aport! Hard astarboard! Hard
alee! Hard aweather up! Hard is also often used in
composition with a participle; as, hard-baked;
hard-earned; hard-working; hard-won.
Hard, v. t.
To harden; to make hard. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
Hard, n.
A ford or passage across a river or swamp.
Synonyms: adamantine, al dente, alcoholic, ambitious, arduous, awkward, backbreaking, bad, baffling, brutal, calculating, calculative, case-hardened, catchy, challenging, conniving, corneous, cruel, delicate, difficult, embarrassing, erect, fermented, firm, firmly, fractious, granitelike, granitic, grueling, gruelling, hard-boiled, hardened, hard-fought, harsh, heavily, heavy, Herculean, hornlike, horny, intemperately, knockout, knotty, laborious, labourious, lignified, marmoreal, marmorean, nasty, ossified, petrified, petrous, plosive, problematic, problematical, punishing, rigorous, rocklike, rocky, rough, rugged, scheming, semihard, serious, set, severe, severely, shrewd, slatey, slaty, solid, soured, stale, steely, sticky, stiff, stonelike, stony, strong, stubborn, tall(a), thorny, ticklish, tight, toilsome, tough, tricky, troublesome, trying, tumid, unenviable, unkind, unpadded, uphill, velar, vexed, woody
Antonyms: easy, lightly, soft
See Also: demanding, effortful, hard, insensitive, merciless, unmerciful
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