hard-setadj.

a1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1872) IV. 55 Þere he [sc. Hannibal] was harde a sette [L. infestatus] foure dayes wiþ Galles.]

1572 (a1500) Taill of Rauf Coilȝear (1882) 449 I sall hald that I haue hecht, bot I be hard set.

1644 K. Digby Two Treat. i. xxxvi. 313 When I was hunting one [sc. a fox], he being hard sett, and but litle before the doggs and the hunters, caught in his mouth the bough of a croked ashetree.

1753 Pædo-baptism ii. 37 As his conclusion is now come to it's last legs; so it will be hard set, to maintain it's ground.

1757 Mother-in-law II. iv. 47 They must be hard set indeed, before they would feed upon all Skin and Bone, without any Flesh.

1829 T. C. Grattan Traits of Trav. II. 92 The peasants understood no other language, and I was hard set to work my way, with the scanty knowledge I possessed.

1866 H. H. Brownell War-lyrics 76 A caitiff blow, (Foully dealt on a hard-set foe), Ever is underwise.

1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer (1891) 221 I have sent for some books..Until they arrive, I shall be rather hard-set.

1904 M. M. Bodkin Patsey the Omadaun 166 He was hardset to persuade himself it was that that ailed him.

1930 Times of India 22 Jan. 16/1 Music lovers who have a trial hearing of both [recordings] will be hard set to make a decision to buy one and not the other.

1943 Galveston (Texas) Tribune 30 Jan. 4/1 Even John Kieran would be hard-set to trip him on any subject.

2005 Sunday Tribune (Ireland) (Nexis) 25 Sept. n5 A nine-month-old child is hard set to sit up at that age, never mind sit in its own seat.

?1781 J. Ringsted Farmer vi. 60 The hop malady, called the Mould,..is found where the surface of the land is hard set and flat.

1813 R. Wilson Private Diary II. 448 More like Egypt's alluvium during the inundation than hard-set soil.

1890 Nature 16 Oct. 602/1 Beds of rigid lava and hard-set ash.

1954 Ann. Brit. School Athens 49 111 I came across a round tower..; it was built of small stones, ill-cut and rendered in all the joints with hard-set clay.

1992 N. Curry Walking to Santiago 10 A candlestick carved from a single stem of juniper, with traces of scented beeswax still hard-set in the bowl.

2009 Sun (Nexis) 18 Apr. (TV Mag.) 14 I don't like a posh jelly—a very hardset cheap jelly is okay!

1818 W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian i, in Tales of my Landlord 2nd Ser. II. 4 It's a hard-set willyard beast this o' mine.

1869 S. Smith David Lloyd's Last Will II. vi. 78 He saw Clough seated on the chair nearest the door, in an attitude of unconscious but unmistakable doggedness, with a face expressive of a hard-set and stubborn determination.

1904 Physical Culture Aug. 143/2 John's stubborn, hard-set mind was beginning to reassert its common sense.

1973 Boys' Life Jan. 11/1 He was very hard-set in his ideas of right and wrong, and he didn't bend.

1998 H. M. Hyman Craftsmanship & Char. 252 Elkins only partially and unsystematically modified certain of his hard-set convictions concerning V&E's [= Vinson & Elkins'] governance.

1827 ‘Delta’ Auld Robin Gray in A. A. Watts Lit. Souvenir 304 He was a tall, lour-shouthered carle..wi' strong, hard-set features, and a brown, three-story wig.

1855 Ld. Tennyson Maud iv. iv, in Maud & Other Poems 16 I..smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic.

1918 Boys' Life Nov. 57/2 Dashing the sweat out of their hard-set eyes, they work on.

1995 S. Krinard Star Crossed 322 Rook turned to him with narrowed eyes and hard-set jaw, blatantly menacing.

2005 Western Mail (Nexis) 28 Feb. 20 He saw a face full of reason but hard-set and plain, framed by closely cropped hair.

1844 Hull Packet & E. Riding Times 14 June 6/1 The third [nest] has four eggs, hard-set.

1879 R. Jefferies Wild Life 339 Some say it is the hardset eggs he [sc. the snake] prefers.

1949 Ibis 91 660 I came across several nests near Elisabethville, finding both fresh and hard-set eggs in early February.

2011 Herald Express (Torquay) (Nexis) 2 July (Features section) 16 Two or three eggs in the nest meant they were hard set... If you boiled them you risked the chance of having an embryo chick staring up at you when you opened the shell top.