hard 
As steele is hardest in his kinde 
Aboue all other that men linde 
Of metalles. Goicer, Conf. Amant, Prol. 
The diamond, why, 'twas beautiful and hard. 
Shak., Lover's Complaint, 1. 211. 
Hard and soft are names that we give to things only in 
relation to the constitutions of our own bodies ; that be- 
ing generally called 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 easy and uupainful 
touch. Locke. 
A body is said to be harder than another when it can 
be used to scratch the latter, but cannot be scratched by it. 
A. Daniell, Physics, p. 230. 
2. Not loose, or not easily loosened; firmly 
formed ; tight ; fast : as, a hard knot ; hence, 
binding ; obligatory : as, a hard and fast prom- 
ise. 3. Hardy; tough; enduring; resistant; 
sound. 
They be of an hard nature, able to abide and sustain 
heat, cold, and labour ; abhorring from all delicate dain- 
ties, occupying no husbandry nor tillage of the ground. 
Sir T. More, Utopia (tr. by Kobinson), it 10. 
They [the horses] are both in hard condition, so it la 
race] can come off in ten days. 
Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, p. 65. 
4. Difficult. 
Is anything too hard for the Lord? Gen. xviii. 14. 
(a) Difficult to overcome : strong ; powerful. 
I am this day weak, though anointed king ; and these 
men the sons of Zeruiah be too hard for me. 2 Sam. iii. 39. 
But what will not Gold do? It will make a Pigmy too 
hard for a Giant Howell, Letters, I. it 9. 
(ft) Difficult of solution, comprehension, decision, etc. ; dif- 
ficult to master, understand, determine, etc. ; perplexing : 
as, a hard question or problem ; a hard language to study ; 
hard words (that is, big words, difficult to pronounce). 
Some clerklike serving-man, 
Who scarce can spell th' hard names. 
B. Joraon, Epigrams, iii. 
For men to tell how human life began 
Is hard ; for who himself beginning knew ? 
Milton, P. L., vill. 261. 
In that Arcadian light when roof and tree, 
Hard prose by daylight, dream in Italy. 
Lowell, Agassiz, iv. 1. 
(c) Difficult to accomplish or effect ; necessitating or in- 
volving considerable effort or labor ; arduous ; laborious ; 
fatiguing : as, hard work ; a hard task. 
When Duncan is asleep 
(Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey 
Soundly invite him). Shak., Macbeth, i. 7. 
It es an harde thyng for to saye, 
Of doghety dedis that hase bene done ; 
Of felle feghtyngs and batells sere. 
Thomas of Ersseldoune (Child's Ballads, I. 97). 
The gods are hard to reconcile : 
"1'is hard to settle order once again. 
Tennyson, Lotos-Eaters (Choric Song), vi. 
So hard 's the task for sinful flesh and blood 
To lend the smallest step to what is good. 
Quarles, Emblems, iv. 8. 
(d) Difficult to endure or bear ; oppressive ; harsh ; cruel : 
as, a hard fate ; a hard blow ; hard treatment ; a hard 
case. 
Hard is the choice when the valiant must eat their 
arms, or clem. 
B. Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, iii. 1. 
A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, 
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride. 
Pope, Epistle to Earl of Oxford, 1. 23. 
5. Carried on, executed, or accomplished with 
great exertion or energy: as, a hard fight; a 
hard struggle ; hard labor or study. 
In this world is hard anenture. 
Hymns to Virgin, etc. (E. E. T. S.), p. 18. 
ffull harde and felon was the bateile ther. 
Merlin (E. E. T. S.), iii. 446. 
To keep some command on our direction required hard 
and diligent plying of the paddle. 
R. L. Stevenson, Inland Voyage, p. 122. 
6. Close, persevering, or unremitting in appli- 
cation or effort; earnest; industrious: as, a 
hard student. 
Hard thinking and fleet talking do not run together. 
Tyndall, Pop. Sci. Mo., XXVI. 335. 
7. Strenuous; violent; vehement: as, a hard 
rain ; a hard trot or run ; hard drinking. 
Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing. 
Shak., Venus and Adonis, 1. 559. 
8. Intellectually sturdy; practical; not vision- 
ary. 
The hard sense of Johnson was not calculated to enter 
into the visionary and ecstatic enthusiasm of the knight 
of Norwich. Bulwer, Misc. Works, 1. 189. 
9. Severe in action or effect; rigorous: as, a 
hard frost ; a hard winter. 
Being cast on land, much bruised and beaten both with 
the sea's hard farewell and the shore's rude welcome 
Sir P. Sidney, Arcadia, ii. 
A cold, hard winter's storms arrive 
And threaten death or famine to their hive. 
Addition, tr. of Virgil's Georgics, iv. 
2710 
10. Harsh, (o) Presenting a harsh, austere, or repul- 
sive appearance : as, hard features. 
When we're us'd 
To a hard face, it is not so unpleasing. 
Middleton and Rotiicy, changeling, ii. 2. 
(/>) Harsh in style, outline, or execution ; stiff ; conven- 
tional ; unnatural. A picture is said to be hard when the 
lights and shades are too strongly marked and too close 
to each other. 
Others . . . make the figures harder than the marble 
itself. Dryden. 
His diction is hard, his figures too bold. Dryden. 
Ice . . . bristles all the brakes and thorns 
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs 
Above the wood. Tennyson, In Memoriam, cvii. 
(c) Of a harsh nature or character ; obdurate ; depraved : 
as, a hard heart; hence, merciless; characterized by the 
absence of kindliness or affection ; unfeeling ; unfriendly ; 
harsh in manner : as, a hard look ; to cherish hard feel- 
ings toward one. 
"Come, Paul ! " she reiterated, her eye grazing me with 
its hard ray like a steel stylet 
Charlotte Bronte, Vttlette, xll. 
They will take her, they will make her hard, 
And she will pass me by in after-life 
With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. 
Tennyson, Princess, v. 
Without imagination, social intercourse grows dry and 
hard, and human life is despoiled of charm. 
J. F. Clarke, Self-Culture, p. 180. 
Electra's voice sounded a little Imnl as she said these 
words, and her smile was more bitter than sweet 
The Century, XXXVII. 51. 
(d) Austere ; exacting ; oppressive : as, to he hard upon 
one : a hard master. 
So Is meny man ymorthred for hus money and goodes, 
And tho that duden the dede ydampned ther -fore after, 
And he for hus harde holdynge in helle. 
Piers Plowman (C\ xiii. 244. 
Think not my judgment leads me to comply 
With laws unjust, but hard necessity : 
Imperious need, which cannot be withstood, 
Makes ill authentic, for a greater good. 
Dryden, Hind and Panther, ill. 836. 
There are none who suffer more under the grievances of 
a Imnl government than the subjects of little principali- 
ties. Adduon. 
(e) Strict in money matters ; close in dealing ; grasping ; 
avaricious. 
Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping 
where thou hast not sown. Mat. xxv. 24. 
(.O Vexatious ; galling : as, hard words or dealings ; to call 
one hard names . 
Have you given him any hard words of late? 
Shak., Hamlet, ii. 1. 
(g) Wicked ; bad ; reprobate ; profane : as, a hard charac- 
ter ; a hard case. [Colloq.J 
11. Coarse, unpalatable, or scanty: as, hard 
fare. 12. Having a refractory quality ; resis- 
tant in some use or application : said of fluids 
affected by or treated with lime, etc. : as, hard 
water. See hardness, 2 (o), and hard water, un- 
der water. 
Put in one quart of quicklime. . . . When the liquor is 
hard, it is of an orange colour, which may be seen by 
blowing. Workshop Receipts, 1st ser., p. 38. 
For excessively large designs the pieces are dipped first 
in lime to fix the lead and copper ; but usually an extra 
dip in the entering vat suffices, especially if the vats are 
strong in lime, or, as the dyers technically term it, very 
hard. O'Neill, Dyeing and Calico Printing, p. 286. 
13. Strong; spirituous; intoxicating; ferment- 
ed: as, hard liquors; hard drinks; hard cider. 
Miles Porter was before the court this morning for sell- 
ing hard liquor, when he had only a licence for selling ale. 
Boston Traveller, Sept 20, 1879. 
14. In silk-manuf., retaining the natural gum : 
distinguished from soft : said of silk. 
Before the gum has been boiled off the silk it is said to 
be /in nl silk, but when boiled off it becomes soft silk 
terms very expressive of the actual condition of the fibres. 
A. Barlow, Weaving, p. 395. 
15. In phonetics : (a) Uttered without sonant 
quality; surd or breathed, as distinguished 
from sonant or voiced. (6) Having a guttural 
as distinguished from a sibilant sound : said of 
c and g as in corn and get, as distinguished from 
c and g as in cite and gee. [In both uses inexact, 
and little used by phoneticians.] At nard edge, 
in fencing, with naked weapons, or in serious conflict. 
Davies. 
By all that's good, I must myself sing small in her com- 
pany ; I will never meet at hard edge with her ; If I did 
... I should be confoundedly gapped. 
Richardson, Sir Charles Grandison, I. 120. 
Hard and fast, strongly binding; strictly obligatory; 
not to be violated or set aside: as, shard and /outbargain; 
hard and fast rules Hard carbonates. See carbonate! . 
Hard cash. See cash'*. Hard cider. See cider. 
Hard-cider campaign, in U. S. polit. hist., the presi- 
dential canvass of 1840, in which much use was made 
of hard cider as an emblem by the supporters of General 
Harrison, from a slur relating to his use of it cast upon 
him by his opponents. See log-cabin. Hard clam, one 
of the large rounded clams with a thick heavy shell used 
for food in the United States ; a round clam, as the qua- 
hog, Venus menenv.no, : so called in distinction from the 
hard . 
soft or long clams of the genup Mya, etc. Hard coal. 
See coal, 2. Hard crab, a hard-shelled edible crab: in 
contradistinction to noj't crab. Hard fish, knot, etc. See 
the nouns. Hard lines. See liiuX.- Hard maple. See 
mnpie. Hard money. See money. Hard muffle-col- 
ors, colors which require the greater heat of the muffle- 
furnace that is to say, about :X>" of the silver pyrometer, 
or nearly 1000 centigrade. Hard Of hearing, hearing 
with difficulty ; partly deaf. 
Child! I am rather hard of hearing 
Yes, truly ; one must scream and bawl : 
I tell you, you can't hear at all ! 
Cowper, Mutual Forbearance. 
Hard paste, in ceram. See porcelain. Hard pine, pot- 
tery, pulse, water, wood, etc. See the nouns. In hard 
condition, see contltiwn. = Syn. 3. Vnyielding, tough. 
4 (6). Perplexing, puzzling, knotty. *4 and 5. Difficult, etc. 
See arduous. 10. Severe, Harxh, etc. (see austere)', insensi- 
ble, callous, obdurate, inflexible. 
II. n. 1 . Something that is hard, in distinc- 
tion from something similar or related that is 
soft ; especially, the hard part of a thing that 
is partly soft, as the shell or rind. 
Of squylles white alle rawe take of the hardes, 
And al the rynde is for this nothing fyne. 
Pattadius, Husbondrie (E. E. T. S.), p. 169. 
2. A small marble. [Prov. Eng.] 3. A firm, 
solid path or way; a paved street or roadway; 
a gravelly passage, as over a fen or marsh. 
[Local, Eng.] 
Two small rooms ... at a tobacconist's shop on the 
Common Hard, a dirty street leading down to the dock- 
yard |at Plymouth, England]. 
Die/cent, Nicholas Nickleby, xxi& 
4. A kind of pier or landing-place for boats on a 
river. Marryat. 5. leap.] In U.S. hist.: (a) A 
member of the more conservative of the two fac- 
tions into which, in 1852 and the years imme- 
diately following, the Democratic party in the 
State of New York was divided, corresponding 
in general to the earlier faction called Hunkers. 
The extreme members were called the Adaman- 
tine Hards. Originally called Hard-shells. 
The Hards had by their own course forfeited the right 
to base their complaints about Pierce's behavior on the 
fact that they alone represented the true national Democ- 
racy, in the decisive question of slavery. 
H. von Hoist, Const Hist (trans.), IV. 272. 
(i) In Missouri, about 1850, one of the support- 
ers of Senator Benton: so called from their ad- 
vocacy of " hard money," but differing from the 
Softs mainly in that they were opposed to se- 
cession doctrines and to the nationalization of 
slavery. 6. pi. A mixture of alum and salt 
used by bakers to whiten bread. Dunglison. 
hard (hard), adv. [< ME. harde, < AS. hearde, 
hard, severely, sorely, very, = OS. hardo = 
OHG. harto, strongly, extremely, very, = Gr. /cdo- 
ra, extremely, very, much, etc. ; from the adj.] 
1. With force, effort, or energy; with urgency; 
forcibly; vehemently; vigorously; energeti- 
cally: as, toworkAardforaliving; torunhard; 
to hold hard; it rains hard. 
Bi that the wyae in the wod wendez his brydel, 
Hit the hors with the helez, as harde as he mygt. 
Sir Gaimyne and the Green Knight (E. E. T. S.), 1. 2155. 
Lie soft, sleep hard, drink wine, and eat good cheer. 
Middlelm, Chaste Maid, L 2. 
But it rained so hard all the night, that I did not much 
fear being attacked. Dumpier, Voyages, II. L 176. 
The wolves scampered away as hard as they could drive. 
Sir B. L'Eitrange. 
And pray'd so hard for mercy from the prince. Dryden. 
He stoop'd and gather'd one 
From out a bed of thick forget-me-nots, 
Look'd hard and sweet at me, and gave it me. 
Tennyson, Queen Mary, v. 5. 
2. Securely; firmly; tightly; so as to be fast. 
Corn. Bind him, I say. 
Reg. Hard, hard. Shak., Lear, iii. 7. 
3. With difficulty. 
Solid bodies foreshow rain, as boxes and pegs of wood 
when they draw and wind hard. Bacon. 
He thought his horse was 'neath him shot, 
And he himself got litrrd away. 
Hobie Noble (Child's Ballads, VI. 102). 
He . . . spoke such scurvy and provoking terms, . . . 
I did full lard forbear him. Shale., Othello, i. 2. 
The whole party was put under a proscription, so gen- 
eral and severe as to take their Aard-earned bread from 
the lowest offices. Burke, Present Discontents (1770). 
4. Disagreeably; unpleasantly; grievously; 
vexatiously ; gallingly. 
Paul Primus fheremita] put vs him-selue 
Awey into wildernes the werlde to dispisen ; 
And there we leng[e]den full longe & lyueden full harde. 
Piers Plowman's Crede (E. E. T. .), 1. 310. 
When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look 
you, it goes hard. Shak., T. G. of V., iv. 4. 
5. So as to be difficult. 
The question is hard set Sir T. Browne. 
