| 释义 |
hard-boiled, a.
[f. to boil hard, where hard is a predicative adj. Cf. hard adv. 8.]
1. Of an egg: boiled till the white and yolk are solid.
1723J. Nott Cook's & Confect. Dict. No. 21, Mince..the Yolks of hard boil'd Eggs. 1747H. Glasse Cookery (1784) 71 Chop two or three hard-boiled eggs fine. 1833Marryat P. Simple xxv, We found hard-boiled eggs, bread, and a smoked mutton ham. 1846A. Soyer Gastron. Regen. 445 Prepare a border of hard-boiled eggs. 1968C. Roden Bk. Middle Eastern Food 99 (heading) Fried hard-boiled eggs.
2. Of articles of clothing: stiff, hard. U.S.
1903A. Adams Log of Cowboy ix. 58 That fellow in front of the drug store over there with the hard boiled hat on. 1919S. Lewis Free Air 86 To Claire, traveling men were merely commercial persons in hard-boiled suits.
3. Hardened, callous; hard-headed, shrewd. orig. U.S. Hence, of measures, practical.
1886‘Mark Twain’ Speeches (1923) 137 Hard-boiled, hide-bound grammar. 1915in Amer. Speech (1937) 260 Hard boiled egg who wouldn't bid 90 on 100 aces. 1919in F. A. Pottle Stretchers (1930) 354 We are too hard-boiled to make much of a demonstration. Ibid. 358 Two hardboiled Irish sergeants are terrorizing the barrack. 1926Publishers' Weekly 10 July 120/1 Stone..being hard-boiled, waited a few days to notice any appreciable increase in sales. 1926Ladies' Home Jrnl. 26 Aug., The hard-boiled cynic has a shell it [sc. satire] can never penetrate. 1928Weekly Dispatch 3 June 10/3 From its obscure beginning down in the ‘tough’ section of New York, up through the ‘hard-boiled’ wards of the great city, into municipal politics and thence into the Governor's chair. 1929A. Conan Doyle Maracot Deep vi. 153 The hard-boiled Scanlan actually fell down in a faint. 1931Buck & Anthony Bring 'Em Back Alive 163 It is all a hard-boiled proposition of not treading on the other fellow's feet for fear he may rise up and poke his big toe in your eye. 1932E. Wilson Devil take Hindmost viii. 80 That man of iron..a drastic-minded and hard-boiled Dane. Ibid. 82 There is a Detroit type which..has some of the energy and hard-boiled bluffness of the Chicagoans. 1934Archit. Rev. LXXV. 116/2 Yet those old houses are safe and kind and probably better employed in modifying some hard-boiled business man's mentality. 1942Mind LI. 274 It certainly is difficult to remain a stoic or a cynic, to be ‘hard-boiled’, for a long time. 1959Encounter Sept. 62/2 The disregard of truth in favour of hard-boiled scientific ideals. 1968Times 27 Sept. 2/3 Mr. Heath's hard-boiled image is beginning to crack.
Hence hard-ˈboiledly adv.; hard-ˈboiledness.
1933H. J. Massingham London Scene iv. 76 No other quarter of London is so consciously, hard-boiledly, shamelessly middle-class [sc. as Kensington]. 1934Webster, Hard-boiledness. 1936Times Lit. Suppl. 28 Mar. 255/2 Pareto apprehended the essential ‘hardboiledness’ of politics by personal and bitter experience. 1939A. Huxley After many a Summer i. vii. 86 He dreaded for her the influence of so much cynicism and hardboiledness. |