Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Cooked until solid: Refers to eggs that have been boiled until both the white and yolk are completely solid.
   • Emotionally hardened: Used to describe a person who is tough, unsentimental, and not easily affected by emotions, often due to difficult experiences.

Examples of Usage

• Adjective:
  • For breakfast, I prefer a hard-boiled egg. (This describes an egg cooked until solid.)
  • The detective in the novel is a classic hard-boiled character, cynical and world-weary. (This describes a person who is emotionally tough.)
  • After years in the competitive business, she became quite hard-boiled. (This describes a person who has become callous.)

Advanced Usage

• "Hard-boiled" as a style: In literature and film, particularly in the crime/detective genre, "hard-boiled" describes a gritty, unsentimental, and realistic style featuring tough, cynical protagonists.
  • He writes in the hard-boiled tradition of Dashiell Hammett.
• Figurative use for attitudes: Can describe an uncompromising, pragmatic, or ruthless attitude.
  • The company has a hard-boiled approach to negotiations.

Variants and Related Words

• Hard-boil (verb): To cook an egg in boiling water until it becomes solid.
  • You should hard-boil the eggs for at least ten minutes.
• Hard-boiledness (noun, rare): The quality of being hard-boiled.
• Hard-bitten (adjective): Similar in meaning to the emotional sense; tough and cynical from experience.

Synonyms

• For eggs: Solid, cooked through.
• For persons: Callous, cynical, tough, unsentimental, hardened, case-hardened, unfeeling.

Related Phrases

• Hard-boiled detective: A specific character type in fiction.
  • Philip Marlowe is the quintessential hard-boiled detective.
• Hard-boiled fiction: A genre of crime fiction.
  • He is an avid reader of hard-boiled fiction.

Adjective

1. (eggs) cooked until the yolk is solid
2. used of persons; emotionally hardened
   • faced a case-hardened judge
3. tough and callous by virtue of experience