Word.ws English Dictionary

hard word

hard word noun: an unkind word or comment; an insult.

Noun

hard word (plural hard words)

  1. (in plural) An unkind word or comment; an insult.
    • He would send the hard word round the country about me and my leman.1891, Bram Stoker, Snake's Pass
  2. (literally) A word which is difficult to understand or spell.
  3. (Australia, Ireland) A tip-off, or piece of inside information; a password.
    • […] but, I don't know how it was, I didn't at all feel comfortable with the priests; for you see I'd rather sport my day figure with the boys and girls upon the green: so I gives Jack the hard word,* and in we went, when, behold you, there was Father Corrigan planted upon the side of a Settle, Mary...1834 [1830], William Carleton, “Shane Fadh's Wedding”, in Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 3rd edition, Dublin: William Frederick Wakeman, pages 179–180
    • My Parsee […] assured me that if only he had the hard word about Linois's whereabouts, he and his associates would make lakh upon lakh of rupees.1973, Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise
  4. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, colloquial) A persistent or rude request, especially for money.
    • The other thing that happened in 1969 was that José put the hard word on his brother again. This time José wanted him to join his slate for the elections to the local leadership of the metalworkers' union.2003, Peter Robb, A Death in Brazil, Bloomsbury, published 2005, page 97
    • What do we do? We go and see them. Put the hard word on Glasgow's so-called hard men.2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 125

Forms of hard word

pluralhard words

Questions about hard word

What does hard word mean?
Hard word means an unkind word or comment; an insult.
What part of speech is hard word?
Hard word is a noun.
What is the plural of hard word?
The plural of hard word is hard words.

Words near hard word in the dictionary

  1. hard ways
  2. hard wheat
  3. hard wheats
  4. hard white
  5. hard wired
  6. hard word
  7. hard words
  8. hard work
  9. hard worker
  10. hard workers
  11. hard X-ray

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hard word (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “hard word.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hard_word. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.