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”). Cognate with German hart, Swedish hård, Ancient Greek κρατύς (kratús), Sanskrit क्रतु (krátu), Avestan 𐬑𐬭𐬀𐬙𐬎 (xratu).

adj

1. (of material or fluid) Solid and firm.
   1. Resistant to pressure; difficult to break, cut or penetrate.
      This bread is so stale and hard, I can barely cut it.
   2. (of drink or drugs) Strong.
   3. (of a normally nonalcoholic drink) Containing alcohol.
      hard cider, hard lemonade, hard seltzer, hard soda
      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 […]. 2023-03-01, Rachel Ellison, “Bad Dates Turn Out to Be Excellent on TikTok”, in The New York Times
   4. (of water) High in dissolved chemical salts, especially those of calcium.
   5. (physics, of a ferromagnetic material) Having the capability of being a permanent magnet by being a material with high magnetic coercivity (compare soft).
   6. (physics, of electromagnetic radiation) Having a high energy (high frequency; short wavelength).
      hard X-rays
   7. (photography, of light) Made up of parallel rays, producing clearly defined shadows.
2. (personal or social) Having a severe property; presenting difficulty.
   1. Difficult or requiring a lot of effort to do, understand, experience, or deal with.
      a hard problem;  a hard question;  a hard topic
      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. 1988, Edmund White, An Oracle
      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. 2013-07-26, Nick Miroff, “Mexico gets a taste for eating insects …”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 7, page 32
   2. Demanding a lot of effort to endure.
      a hard life
   3. Severe, harsh, unfriendly, brutal.
      a hard master;  a hard heart;  hard words;  a hard character
      The senator asked the party chief to put the hard word on his potential rivals.
      Leave 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 wild honest young rake. 1730, Henry Fielding, Rape upon Rape, act 4, scene 7
   4. (dated) Difficult to resist or control; powerful.
   5. (military) Hardened; having unusually strong defences.
      a hard site
   6. (slang) Tough, muscular, badass.
      He thinks he's well hard.
3. Unquestionable, unequivocal.
   hard evidence;  a hard requirement
   […]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. 1796, The History of the Trial of Warren Hastings
   Here are a few techniques to turn a hard "no" into an easy "yes"! 1962, The Selling Power of a Woman
   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. December 19, 2011, Kerry Brown, “Kim Jong-il obituary”, in The Guardian
4. (of a road intersection) Having a comparatively larger or a ninety-degree angle.
   At the intersection, there are two roads going to the left. Take the hard left.
5. (slang, vulgar, of a male) Sexually aroused; having an erect penis.
   I got so hard watching two hot girls wrestle each other on the beach.
6. (bodybuilding) Having muscles that are tightened as a result of intense, regular exercise.
7. (phonetics, not comparable) Fortis.
   1. Plosive.
      There is a hard c in "clock" and a soft c in "centre".
   2. Unvoiced.
      Hard k, t, s, ch, as distinguished from soft, g, d, z, j.
8. (Slavic phonology) Velarized or plain, rather than palatalized.
   The letter ж (ž) in Russian is always hard.
9. (art) Having a severe property; presenting a barrier to enjoyment.
   1. Rigid in the drawing or distribution of the figures; formal; lacking grace of composition.
   2. Having disagreeable and abrupt contrasts in colour or shading.
10. (not comparable)
    1. In a physical form, not digital.
       a soft or hard copy; a digital or hard archive
    2. Using a manual or physical process, not by means of a software command.
       a hard reboot or reset
11. (politics) Far, extreme.
    hard right, hard left
12. Of silk: not having had the natural gum boiled off.
13. (finance) Of a market: having more demand than supply; being a seller's market.
    Undercapitalized insurers cannot retain more catastrophe risks when the market is hard […] 2009, J. David Cummins, Olivier Mahul, Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries, page 7
14. (of pornography) hardcore

adv

1. (manner) With much force or effort.
   He hit the puck hard up the ice.
   They worked hard all week.
   At the intersection, bear hard left.
   The recession hit them especially hard.
   Think hard about your choices.
   The couple were fucking each other hard.
   I played hard, I drank hard, I rode hard, and did everything much on the same pattern. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 164
   What, then, of the voluntarist's sense that one often has to think long and hard before making agonizing choices? 1985, Michael A. Arbib, In search of the person: philosophical explorations in cognitive science, page 119
2. (manner) With difficulty.
   His degree was hard earned.
3. (obsolete) So as to raise difficulties.
4. (manner) Compactly.
   The lake had finally frozen hard.
5. (now archaic) Near, close.
   It was another long day's march before they glimpsed the towers of Harrenhal in the distance, hard beside the blue waters of the lake. 1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 418

noun

1. (countable, nautical) A firm or paved beach or slope convenient for hauling vessels out of the water.
   The Monastery's ironworks at Sowley were renowned for centuries but declined with the passing of the 'wooden walls' at Buckler's Hard — a great number of these ships having been built with timber from the Beaulieu Woods […] 1952, Edward John Barrington Douglas-Scott-Montagu Baron Montagu, Beaulieu, the Abbey, Palace House, and Buckler's Hard, page 36
2. (countable, motor racing) A tyre whose compound is softer than superhards, and harder than mediums.
3. (uncountable, drugs, slang) Crack cocaine.
4. (uncountable, slang) Hard labor.
   The prisoners were sentenced to three years' hard.