hard
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: häd
ipa: /hɑːd/
enpr: härd
ipa: /hɑɹd/
rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)d
Forms: form: harder
form: more hard
form: hardest
form: most hard
Etymology: From Middle English hard, from Old English heard, from Proto-West Germanic *hard(ī), from Proto-Germanic *harduz, from Proto-Indo-European *kort-ús, from *kret- (“strong, powerful”).
Cognates
Cognate with Yola hard (“hard”), West Frisian hurd (“hard”), Alemannic German hert (“hard”), Bavarian hoat (“hard”), Central Franconian haat (“hard”), Dutch hard (“hard”), German hart (“hard”), Luxembourgish haart (“hard”), Danish, Swedish hård (“hard”), Faroese, Icelandic harður (“hard”), Norwegian Bokmål hard (“hard”), Norwegian Nynorsk hard, hard’u (“hard”), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐍂𐌳𐌿𐍃 (hardus, “hard”), Ancient Greek κρατύς (kratús, “strong, mighty”), Sanskrit क्रतु (krátu, “power, might, ability”), Avestan 𐬑𐬭𐬀𐬙𐬎 (xratu).
Senses: examples: text: Luckily she wasn’t there any more, no one was, when he returned from the Caribbean carnival damp-hatted and soaked through after being caught unprepared by a squall of hard, hot rain.
ref: 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 5:
glosses: Solid and firm.
raw_tags: of material or fluid
examples: text: This bread is so stale and hard, I can barely cut it.
glosses: Solid and firm.
Resistant to pressure; difficult to break, cut, or penetrate.
synonyms: resistant
solid
stony
antonyms: soft
raw_tags: of material or fluid
glosses: Solid and firm.
Strong.
synonyms: strong
antonyms: low-alcohol
raw_tags: of drink or drugs
of material or fluid
examples: text: hard cider, hard lemonade, hard seltzer, hard soda
text: Stunned, she deleted his number and went home. Then she cracked a hard seltzer, opened her phone’s camera and filmed a TikTok video recounting the evening […].
ref: 2023 March 1, Rachel Ellison, “Bad Dates Turn Out to Be Excellent on TikTok”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 02 Mar 2023:
glosses: Solid and firm.
Containing alcohol.
antonyms: alcohol-free
soft
non-alcoholic
raw_tags: of a normally nonalcoholic drink
of material or fluid
examples: text: While most 1974s remain hard, tannic, hollow wines lacking ripeness, flesh, and character, a number of the Graves estates did produce surprisingly spicy, interesting wines.
ref: 2002, Robert M. Parker (Jr.), Pierre-Antoine Rovani, Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide (page 175)
topics: beverages
food
lifestyle
oenology
glosses: Solid and firm.
Very acidic or tannic.
raw_tags: of material or fluid
glosses: Solid and firm.
High in dissolved chemical salts, especially those of calcium.
raw_tags: of water
of material or fluid
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Solid and firm.
Having the capability of being a permanent magnet by being a material with high magnetic coercivity (compare soft).
raw_tags: of a ferromagnetic material
of material or fluid
examples: text: hard X-rays
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Solid and firm.
Having a high energy (high frequency; short wavelength).
raw_tags: of electromagnetic radiation
of material or fluid
topics: arts
hobbies
lifestyle
photography
glosses: Solid and firm.
Made up of parallel rays, producing clearly defined shadows.
raw_tags: of light
of material or fluid
examples: text: a hard problem;  a hard question;  a hard topic
text: Ray found it hard to imagine having accumulated so many mannerisms before the dawn of sex, of the sexual need to please, of the staginess sex encourages or the tightly capped wells of poisoned sexual desire the disappointed must stand guard over.
ref: 1988, Edmund White, An Oracle:
text: The stone circle is small and hard to find and the search is made harder because all down the beck cars are parked on the verge and the supposedly unfrequented road up the valley very busy.
ref: 1999 January 21, Alan Bennett, “What I did in 1998”, in London Review of Books, volume 21, number 2:
text: The San Juan market is Mexico City's most famous deli of exotic meats, where an adventurous shopper can hunt down hard-to-find critters such as ostrich, wild boar and crocodile.
ref: 2013 July 26, Nick Miroff, “Mexico gets a taste for eating insects …”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 7, page 32:
text: It’s been said that, for nonstellar teachers at least, the hardest things to teach are the things one loves most.
ref: 2016 January 2, James Romm, “Beginning Greek, Again and Again”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 08 Nov 2020:
qualifier: personal or social
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
Difficult or requiring a lot of effort to do, understand, experience, or deal with.
synonyms: word: confusing
word: difficult
word: puzzling
word: tough
word: tricky
word: arduous
word: challenging
word: nasty
word: difficult
word: effortful
word: hard
word: rocky
word: thistly
word: tough
word: uneath
word: unsimple
antonyms: easy
simple
straightforward
trite
examples: text: a hard life
qualifier: personal or social
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
Demanding a lot of effort to endure.
synonyms: difficult
intolerable
tough
unbearable
antonyms: bearable
easy
examples: text: a hard master;  a hard heart;  hard words;  a hard character
text: The senator asked the party chief to put the hard word on his potential rivals.
text: [L]eave off fornicating, leave the Girls to the Boys, and ſtand to thy Bottle: It is a Virtue becoming our Years; and don't be too hard on a vvild honeſt young Rake.
ref: 1730, [Henry Fielding], Rape upon Rape; or, The Justice Caught in His Own Trap. A Comedy. […], London: […] J. Wat[t]s, […], →OCLC, Act IV, scene vii, page 58:
qualifier: personal or social
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
Severe, harsh, unfriendly, brutal.
synonyms: word: harsh
word: hostile
word: severe
word: strict
word: tough
word: unfriendly
word: callous
word: cold
word: cold-eyed
word: dour
word: flint-hearted
word: forbidding
word: frosty
word: grim
word: hard
word: hard-boiled
word: hardened
word: hardhearted
word: heartless
word: harsh
word: humorless
word: icy
word: iron-hearted
word: insensitive
word: rigorous
word: rockhearted
word: severe
word: stern
word: stonehearted
word: stony
word: stonyhearted
word: strict
word: tough
word: unsympathetic
word: unmoved
examples: text: The stag was too hard for the horse.
ref: 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:
text: a power which will be always too hard for them
ref: 1716 March 23 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 24. Monday, March 12. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:
qualifier: personal or social
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
Difficult to resist or control; powerful.
examples: text: a hard site
topics: government
military
politics
war
qualifier: personal or social
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
Hardened; having unusually strong defences.
examples: text: He thinks he's well hard.
text: I was a hard niggah, but not twisted enough to eat and socialize with my peeps knowing I was planning on robbing them before the night was over.
ref: 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 108:
qualifier: personal or social
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
Tough, muscular, badass.
examples: text: This song goes hard.
text: This guy always has the hardest fits.
qualifier: personal or social
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
Excellent, impressive.
examples: text: hard evidence;  a hard requirement
text: […]for, unless supported by hard facts, abusive words would recoil on him who used them, and would pass like empty air over the head of an innocent man.
ref: 1796, The History of the Trial of Warren Hastings:
text: Here are a few techniques to turn a hard "no" into an easy "yes"!
ref: 1962, The Selling Power of a Woman:
text: Unsurprisingly for a man who went into mourning for three years after the death in 1994 of his own father, the legendary leader Kim Il-sung, and who in the first 30 years of his political career made no public statements, even to his own people, Kim's career is riddled with claims, counter claims, speculation, and contradiction. There are few hard facts about his birth and early years.
ref: 2011 December 19, Kerry Brown, “Kim Jong-il obituary”, in The Guardian:
synonyms: incontrovertible
indubitable
unambiguous
unequivocal
unquestionable
glosses: Unquestionable; unequivocal.
examples: text: At the intersection, there are two roads going to the left. Take the hard left.
glosses: Having a comparatively larger or a ninety-degree angle.
raw_tags: of a road intersection
examples: text: I got so hard watching two hot girls wrestle each other on the beach.
antonyms: soft
flaccid
glosses: Sexually aroused; having an erect penis.
raw_tags: of a male
topics: bodybuilding
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Having muscles that are tightened as a result of intense, regular exercise.
examples: text: There is a hard c in "clock" and a soft c in "centre".
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
phonetics
phonology
sciences
antonyms: soft
glosses: Fortis.
Plosive.
examples: text: Hard k, t, s, ch, as distinguished from soft, g, d, z, j.
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
phonetics
phonology
sciences
antonyms: soft
glosses: Fortis.
Unvoiced.
examples: text: The letter ж (ž) in Russian is always hard.
qualifier: Slavic phonology
glosses: Velarized or plain, rather than palatalized.
topics: art
arts
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting a barrier to enjoyment.
Rigid in the drawing or distribution of the figures; formal; lacking grace of composition.
topics: art
arts
glosses: Having a severe property; presenting a barrier to enjoyment.
Having disagreeable and abrupt contrasts in colour or shading.
examples: text: a soft or hard copy; a digital or hard archive
glosses: In a physical form, not digital.
examples: text: a hard reboot or reset
glosses: Using a manual or physical process, not by means of a software command.
examples: text: hard right, hard left
topics: government
politics
glosses: Far, extreme.
glosses: Of silk: not having had the natural gum boiled off.
examples: text: Undercapitalized insurers cannot retain more catastrophe risks when the market is hard […]
ref: 2009, J. David Cummins, Olivier Mahul, Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries, page 7:
topics: business
finance
antonyms: soft
glosses: Of a market: having more demand than supply; being a seller's market.
topics: lifestyle
media
pornography
sexuality
glosses: Hardcore.
Synonyms: word: adamantine
word: concrete
word: firm
word: granitic
word: grim
word: hard
word: inflexible
word: lithic
word: resistant
word: rigid
word: robust
word: solid
word: stiff
word: stout
word: sturdy
word: stony
word: tough
word: unbending
word: unyielding
Hyponyms: word: indurate
word: obstinate
word: starched
word: stubborn
word: unshakeable
word: vitreous
Derived terms: word: an old dog for a hard road
word: between a rock and a hard place
word: blow-hard
word: bone-hard
word: bone hard
word: cold hard cash
word: die-hard
word: do the hard yards
word: drive a hard bargain
word: dumb hard
word: fall on hard times
word: find out the hard way
word: forhard
word: give someone a hard time
word: go hard
word: go hard or go home
word: go hard with someone
word: hard act to follow
word: hard and fast
word: hard-and-fast
word: hard-arse
word: hard as a rock
word: hard as brazil
word: hard as Chinese algebra
word: hard as iron
word: hard ask
word: hard as nails
word: hard-ass
word: hard-assed
word: hard-assery
word: hard as the nether millstone
word: hard atheism
word: hard atheist
word: hard at work
word: hardback
word: hardbacked
word: hardbag
word: hardbake
word: hardball
word: hardbeam
word: hard-bill
word: hard-block
word: hardboard
word: hardbody
word: hard-boil
word: hard-boiled
word: hard bop
word: hardbottom
word: hardbound
word: hard bread
word: hard Brexit
word: hard by
word: hard candy
word: hard case
word: hard cases make bad law
word: hard cash
word: hard charger
word: hard-charging
word: hard cheese
word: hard cider
word: hard clam
word: hard class
word: hardcoal
word: hard coal
word: hardcoat
word: hard code
word: hard-code
word: hard coded
word: hard copy
word: hard core
word: hard-core
word: hardcore
word: hard count
word: hard-counter
word: hard counter
word: hardcourt
word: hard court
word: hardcover
word: hardcovered
word: hard-cured
word: hard currency
word: hard deck
word: hard deletion
word: hard determinism
word: hard determinist
word: hard disc
word: hard disc drive
word: hard disk
word: hard disk drive
word: hard dough bread
word: hard drink
word: harddrive
word: hard drive
word: hard-driving
word: hard drop
word: hard drug
word: hard ears
word: hard-easy effect
word: hard edge
word: hard-edged
word: hard-edge painting
word: hardel
word: harden
word: harder daddy
word: hard error
word: harder than Chinese math
word: hardface
word: hard facts
word: hard fault
word: hard-favored
word: hard-favoured
word: hard-featured
word: hard feelings
word: hardfern
word: hard fern
word: hard-fisted
word: hardflip
word: hard-float
word: hard float
word: hard food
word: hard fork
word: hard freeze
word: hard g
word: hard gainer
word: hard going
word: hard goods
word: hardgoods
word: hard-grained
word: hard grass
word: hardgrass
word: hardground
word: hardhack
word: hard hand
word: hard-handed
word: hard handed
word: hardhanded
word: hard-handedly
word: hard-handedness
word: hard hat
word: hard head
word: hardheaded
word: hard-headed
word: hard-head
word: hardhead
word: hard-hearted
word: hardhearted
word: hard-heartedly
word: hard-heartedness
word: hard hit
word: hardish
word: hard jade
word: hard kill
word: hard knock
word: hard knocks
word: hard labor
word: hard labour
word: hard land
word: hard-land
word: hard landing
word: hard landscaping
word: hard launch
word: hard-launch
word: hard-left
word: hard left
word: hard lemonade
word: hard lens
word: hard light
word: hard line
word: hard-line
word: hardline
word: hard-liner
word: hardliner
word: hard lines
word: hard link
word: hard liquor
word: hardlock
word: hardlooking
word: hard loser
word: hard luck
word: hard-luck
word: hard-luck story
word: hard luxury
word: hardly
word: hard man
word: hardman
word: hard maple
word: hard market
word: hard matte
word: hard measles
word: hard metal
word: hard milkwood
word: hard mode
word: hard money
word: hard-mouthed
word: hard multum
word: hard mutation
word: hard nail
word: hard neck
word: hardness
word: hard news
word: hard-nose
word: hard nose
word: hard nosed
word: hard-nosed
word: hardnosed
word: hard nut to crack
word: hard of hearing
word: hard of heart
word: hard of seeing
word: hard of thinking
word: hardometer
word: hard-on
word: hardon
word: hard on the eyes
word: hard out
word: hardpack
word: hardpacked
word: hardpad
word: hard palate
word: hard-pan
word: hardpan
word: hard pass
word: hard-paste
word: hard paste
word: hardpaste
word: hard paywall
word: hard pill
word: hard pill to swallow
word: hard pine
word: hardpoint
word: hard power
word: hardpressed
word: hard put
word: hard r
word: hard R
word: hard radiation
word: hard rain
word: hard real-time
word: hard reboot
word: hard redirect
word: hard reset
word: hard return
word: hard right
word: hard-right
word: hard rock
word: hard rocker
word: hard roe
word: hard row to hoe
word: hard rubber
word: hard-run
word: hard sauce
word: hardscape
word: hard science
word: hard science fiction
word: hardscrabble
word: hard-scrabble
word: hard-sectored
word: hard sectoring
word: hard sell
word: hard-sell
word: hard seltzer
word: hard-set
word: hard-shell clam
word: hardshelled
word: hard-shell
word: hardshell
word: hardship
word: hard shoulder
word: hard sign
word: hard skill
word: hard sledding
word: hard soap
word: hardsome
word: hard space
word: hardsport
word: hardspun
word: hardstand
word: hard standing
word: hard start
word: hard steel
word: hardstep
word: hardstone
word: hard stop
word: hardstuck
word: hard stuff
word: hardstyle
word: hardsuit
word: hard swap
word: hard swearing
word: hard tack
word: hard-tack
word: hardtack
word: hardtail
word: hard target
word: hard tech
word: hard tick
word: hard-ticket
word: hard time
word: hard times
word: hard to come by
word: hard-to-get
word: hardtop
word: hard to please
word: hard to swallow
word: hard truth
word: hard-up
word: hard up
word: hard vacuum
word: hard vore
word: hardwall
word: hard war
word: hardware
word: hard water
word: hard way
word: hardway
word: hardwear
word: hard wheat
word: hard white
word: hard-wire
word: hard wired
word: hardwired
word: hardwood
word: hard word
word: hard words
word: hard work
word: hardworking
word: hard X-ray
word: hard yakka
word: hard yards
word: have a hard time
word: have a hard time of it
word: have it hard
word: hit hard
word: hit one hard
word: hold hard
word: hold yew hard
word: learn the hard way
word: leather-hard
word: make hard work of
word: make someone hard to catch
word: microhard
word: Nintendo hard
word: no hard feelings
word: nonhard
word: NP-hard
word: old habits die hard
word: over hard
word: overhard
word: play hard to get
word: prehard
word: put the hard word on
word: Queen's hard bargain
word: rad-hard
word: ridden hard and put away wet
word: rock-hard
word: rock hard
word: rode hard and put up wet
word: school of hard knocks
word: semi-hard
word: semihard
word: stone-hard
word: stonehard
word: the hard way
word: too hard basket
word: too-hard basket
word: tryhard
word: try-hard
word: ultrahard
word: working hard or hardly working
english: hard
translation: hard
urls: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Category:English+lemmas&from=hard#mw-pages
word: English terms starting with
Related terms: word: hardpeer
word: hardy
word: hard as nails