Word.ws English Dictionary

hard-pressed

hard-pressed adjective: barely able; having difficulty doing something.

Adjective

hard-pressed (comparative more hard-pressed, superlative most hard-pressed)

  1. (idiomatic, usually) Barely able; having difficulty doing something.
    • Although they are still available, I think we would be hard-pressed to find one on short notice.
    • From the 'fifties onwards the development of the South Wales & Monmouthshire coalfield went on at terrific speed, and railway construction was hard pressed to keep pace with it.1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157
  2. (idiomatic) Experiencing financial difficulty or difficulty in surviving.
    • The earthquake left the residents hard-pressed.
    • Speaking to Parliament on March 23, Sunak announced a temporary cut in fuel duty of 5p per litre to hard-pressed motorists who have faced spiralling prices for diesel and petrol in recent weeks.2022 April 6, “Network News: Spring Statement: Sunak accused of making rail less competitive”, in RAIL, number 954, page 8
    Synonyms:
    in dire straits

hard-pressed meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

hard-pressed in Tamil

இக்கட்டிற்குள்ளான, நெருக்கத்திற்கு உள்ளான

hard-pressed in Bengali

কষ্টে সক্ষম

hard-pressed in Malayalam

hotly pursued, under attack, harried
വിടാതെ പിന്തുടരപ്പെടുന്ന, വേട്ടയാടപ്പെടുന്ന, ആക്രമണത്തിനരയായ, പീഡിപ്പിക്കപ്പെട്ട, വിഹത, ശത്രുക്കളാൽ പുന്തുടരപ്പെടുന്ന
beleaguered, in difficulties, under pressure
ഉപരുദ്ധ, ഉപരോധിക്കപ്പെട്ട, ഞെരുക്കമുള്ള, വിഷമഘട്ടത്തിലിരിക്കുന്ന, വിഷമസ്ഥിതിയിലായ, വിഷമസന്ധിയിലായ

Synonyms of hard-pressed

Forms of hard-pressed

comparativemore hard-pressed
superlativemost hard-pressed
alternative formhard pressed
alternative formhardpressed

Questions about hard-pressed

What does hard-pressed mean?
Hard-pressed means barely able; having difficulty doing something.
What is hard-pressed in Tamil?
Hard-pressed in Tamil is இக்கட்டிற்குள்ளான, நெருக்கத்திற்கு உள்ளான. See Hard-pressed meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is hard-pressed?
Hard-pressed is an adjective.

Words near hard-pressed in the dictionary

  1. hard-noses
  2. hard-of-hearing
  3. hard-on
  4. hard-ons
  5. hard-paste
  6. hard-pressed
  7. hard-r
  8. hard-reset
  9. hard-resets
  10. hard-resetting
  11. hard-right

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hard-pressed (page history and authors); hard-pressed (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hard-pressed (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hard-pressed (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hard-pressed.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hard-pressed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hard-pressed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.