Hard

Hard, härd, adj. not easily penetrated, firm, solid: difficult to understand or accomplish: violent, vehement: rigorous: close, earnest, industrious: coarse, scanty: stingy, niggardly: difficult to bear, painful: unjust: difficult to please: unfeeling: severe: stiff: constrained: intractable, resistant in some use, as water, &c.: strong, spirituous: (of silk) without having the natural gum boiled off: surd or breathed, as opposed to sonant or voiced.—n. a firm beach or foreshore: hard labour.—adv. with urgency, vigour, &c.: earnestly, forcibly: with difficulty: close, near, as in Hard by.—adv. Hard-a-lee, close to the lee-side, &c.—adj. Hard′-and-fast′, rigidly laid down and adhered to.—adv. Hard aport! a command instructing the helmsman to turn the tiller to the left or port side of the ship, thus causing the ship to swerve to the right or starboard.—ns. Hard′-bake, a sweetmeat made of boiled sugar and almonds; Hard′beam, the hornbeam.—adjs. Hard′-billed, having a hard bill or beak—of birds; Hard′-bitt′en, given to hard biting, tough in fight; Hard′-cured, cured thoroughly, as fish, by drying in the sun.—n. Hard′-drink′er, a constant drunkard.—adj. Hard′-earned, earned with toil or difficulty.—v.t. Hard′en, to make hard or harder: to make firm: to strengthen: to confirm in wickedness: to make insensible.—v.i. to become hard or harder, either lit. or fig.—adj. Hard′ened, made hard, unfeeling.—n. Hard′ener.—adj. Hard′-fav′oured, having coarse features.—n. Hard′-fav′ouredness.—adj. Hard′-feat′ured, of hard, coarse, or forbidding features.—n. Hard′-feat′uredness.—adjs. Hard′-fist′ed, having hard or strong fists or hands: close-fisted: niggardly; Hard′-fought, sorely contested; Hard′-gott′en, obtained with difficulty; Hard′-grained, having a close firm grain: uninviting.—n. Hard′-hack, the steeple-bush, an erect shrub of the rose family, with rose-coloured or white flowers.—adjs. Hard′-hand′ed, having hard hands: rough: severe; Hard′-head′ed, shrewd, intelligent; Hard′-heart′ed, having a hard or unfeeling heart: cruel.—adv. Hard′-heart′edly.—n. Hard′-heart′edness.—adj. Hard′ish, somewhat hard.—n. Hard′-lā′bour, labour imposed on certain classes of criminals during their imprisonment.—adv. Hard′ly, with difficulty: scarcely, not quite: severely, harshly.—adj. Hard′-mouthed, having a mouth hard or insensible to the bit: not easily managed.—n. Hard′-pan, the hard detritus often underlying the superficial soil: the lowest level.—adjs. Hard′-ruled (Shak.), ruled with difficulty; Hard′-run, greatly pressed; Hard′-set, beset by difficulty: rigid; Hard′-shell, having a hard shell: rigidly orthodox.—ns. Hard′ship, a hard state, or that which is hard to bear, as toil, injury, &c.; Hard′-tack, ship-biscuit.—adj. Hard′-vis′aged, of a hard, coarse, or forbidding visage.—ns. Hard′ware, trade name for all sorts of articles made of the baser metals, such as iron or copper; Hard′wareman.—adj. Hard′-won, won with toil and difficulty.—n.pl. Hard′wood-trees, forest trees of comparatively slow growth, producing compact hard timber, as oak, ash, elm, walnut, beech, birch, &c.—Hard hit, seriously hurt, as by a loss of money: deeply smitten with love; Hard lines, a hard lot; Hard metal, an alloy of two parts of copper with one of tin for gun metal; Hard money, money emphatically, prop. coin; Hard of hearing, pretty deaf; Hard swearing, swearing (as a witness) persistently to what is false, perjury; Hard up, short of money.—Be hard put to it, to be in great straits or difficulty; Die hard, to die only after a desperate struggle for life. [A.S. heard; Dut. hard, Ger. hart, Goth. hardus; allied to Gr. kratys, strong.]