hard-boiled
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: hardboiled
Alternative forms
Adjective
hard-boiled (comparative more hard-boiled, superlative most hard-boiled)
- Cooked to a solid consistency. (of a boiled egg)
- Callous and unsentimental. (of a person, especially a detective)
- 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 31:
- 'Some big, hard-boiled egg meets up with a pretty face, and bingo! He cracks up and melts.'
- 1934, James T. Farrell, chapter 17, in The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan:
- Christ, maybe that blond was only a bitch after all. Maybe she put out even to the punks. Come to think of it, she looked a little hard-boiled. The kind of a broad who knew a hell of a lot.
- (literature, especially detective fiction) Written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
of an egg
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Verb
hard-boiled
- simple past and past participle of hard-boil
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