Definition

1. Noun:
   • A period of significant difficulty or struggle: Refers to an experience involving hardship, challenge, or adversity.
   • A prison sentence served under strict, maximum-security conditions: Specifically denotes a punitive period of incarceration.

Usage and Examples

• Noun (Period of Difficulty):
  • She is having a hard time adjusting to her new job.
  • The company fell on hard times during the recession.
• Noun (Prison Sentence):
  • The convict is doing hard time for his crimes.
  • He was sentenced to ten years of hard time.

Advanced Usage and Nuances

• "Give someone a hard time": To criticize, tease, or make things difficult for someone.
  • The older kids always give him a hard time about his glasses.
• "Have a hard time" + [verb-ing]: To experience difficulty in doing something.
  • I have a hard time understanding the local accent.

Variants and Related Words

• Hard-times: (noun, often hyphenated or plural) A period of economic depression or personal financial struggle.
  • The family remembered the hard-times of the 1930s.
• Hard-time (as a modifier): Used attributively to describe something related to serving a strict prison sentence.
  • He was a hard-time prisoner.

Synonyms

• Difficulty: The state or condition of being hard to do or deal with.
• Hardship: Severe suffering or privation.
• Struggle: A forceful effort to get free or to achieve something.
• Rough sledding: (Idiomatic) A difficult or challenging period or process.

Related Phrases

• Doing time: (Phrasal verb) Serving a prison sentence.
  • He's doing time in a federal penitentiary.
• Hard luck: Bad fortune.
  • He's had nothing but hard luck this year.

Related Idioms

• Hard time of it: An experience involving great difficulty.
  • The explorers had a hard time of it crossing the desert.
• Times are hard: An expression stating that current circumstances are difficult, especially financially.
  • With the factory closed, times are hard in this town.

Noun

1. a term served in a maximum security prison
2. a difficulty that can be overcome with effort
   • we had a hard time getting here
   • analysts predicted rough sledding for handset makers