Word.ws English Dictionary

schools of hard knocks

schools of hard knocks is the plural of school of hard knocks.

Meaning of school of hard knocks

Noun

school of hard knocks (plural schools of hard knocks)

  1. (US, countable, idiomatic) The source of an education consisting of real-world experiences, especially adverse experiences.
    • Trained, however, in the school of hard knocks, he now had learned the theory of success, and from that time on has had it.1870, The Men Who Advertise: An Account of Successful Advertisers, New York: Rowell, page 161
    Synonyms:
    university of hard knocks, university of life, university of the streets

Questions about schools of hard knocks

What is schools of hard knocks the plural of?
Schools of hard knocks is the plural of school of hard knocks.

Words near schools of hard knocks in the dictionary

  1. schoolroom
  2. schoolrooms
  3. schoolrun
  4. schoolruns
  5. schools
  6. schools of hard knocks
  7. schools of the air
  8. schools of thought
  9. schools of thoughts
  10. schoolscape
  11. schoolscapes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: schools of hard knocks (page history and authors); school of hard knocks (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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