hard-boiled

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See also: hardboiled

English

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Alternative forms

Adjective

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

  1. Cooked to a solid consistency. (of a boiled egg)
  2. Callous and unsentimental. (of a person, especially a detective)
    • 1916 March 11, Charles E. Van Loan, “His Folks”, in Saturday Evening Post‎:
      He told me afterward that he tried to find his folks and square himself—and maybe it was the truth—but some of the hard-boiled townspeople found him, instead, and he had a running fight all the way to the depot.
    • 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.
  3. (literature, especially detective fiction) Written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

hard-boiled

  1. simple past and past participle of hard-boil
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