Hard-boiled

adj, verb

adj, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of hard-boil form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Cooked to a solid consistency. (of a boiled egg)
  2. 2
    Callous and unsentimental. (of a person, especially a detective)

    "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."

  3. 3
    Written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.
Adjective
  1. 1
    (eggs) cooked until the yolk is solid wordnet
  2. 2
    used of persons; emotionally hardened wordnet
  3. 3
    tough and callous by virtue of experience wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
austerecallouscase-hardenedcoldcold-eyeddour

Example

More examples

"She likes her eggs hard-boiled."

Related phrases

hard-boiledness

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.