| 单词 | a hard nut to crack |
| 释义 | > as lemmasa hard (also tough) nut to crack 4. With allusion to the difficulty of cracking hard-shelled nuts: a difficult question or problem; a matter or undertaking difficult to accomplish; a person hard to deal with, conciliate, etc. Now usually with crack, esp. in a hard (also tough) nut to crack.With reference to persons, explicit contextual allusion is now frequently dropped: see sense A. 6. See also hard nut n. at hard adj. and n. Compounds 4, tough nut n. at tough adj. and n. Compounds 2. ΘΚΠ the world > action or operation > difficulty > [noun] > that which is difficult > a difficult thing or person sluta1475 nut1540 Tartar1669 bitch1699 handful1755 tickler1825 pebble1829 hard ticket1847 tough nut1862 bear1876 Roger1885 trier1893 peb1903 heller1923 pawful1925 honey1932 sod1936 toughie1945 motherfucker1948 hard-arse1966 the world > action or operation > difficulty > [noun] > that which is difficult > a difficult problem knotc1000 a bone to pick (also gnaw)c1450 dark, hard sentence1535 nut1540 Gordian knot1579 nodus1728 teaser1759 stumper1807 Chinese puzzlec1815 facer1828 sticker1849 grueller1856 stumbler1863 twister1879 the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > secrecy, concealment > a profound secret, mystery > puzzle, enigma, riddle > [noun] > especially difficult nut1540 problem1543 enigma1609 three-pipe problem1891 Chinese puzzle1895 monkey-puzzle1902 1540 T. Elyot Def. Good Women sig. Ciiiv Nowe knacke me that nut mayster Candidus. 1570 T. North tr. A. F. Doni Morall Philos. 60 Your Maiestie hath euen lighted right on the..hardest Nutte to cracke: if you meane to follow that you haue propounded. 1589 Hay any Work (1844) 33 Like you any of these Nuts, John Canterbury? 1659 Public Intelligencer No. 199. 800 Now we have in our power most of the passages of the Country that are of any importance, except..Dammin, which is a hard Nut to crack. 1662–7 A. Cowley Of Plants in Wks. (1881) II. 276/1 'Tis time that you these childish Sports forsake, Hymen for you has other Nuts to crack. ?1705 E. Hickeringill Vindic. Char. Priest-craft 26 Here's Nuts enough to employ their Teeth..; but,..before they crack them they will break their Brains. 1745 B. Franklin Let. in Wks. (1887) II. 16 Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack; and your teeth have not been accustomed to it. 1801 W. Huntington God Guardian of Poor Ded. p. iii Those providences which appear rather out of the common line are hard nuts in the mouth of a weak believer. 1861 J. Brown Horæ Subsecivæ 2nd Ser. II. 242 He especially liked mental nuts. 1866 Illustr. London News 9 June 549 Spain has..got some of her teeth broken in the attempt to crack a nut that was too hard for them. 1897 B. Stoker Dracula v. 56 He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. 1924 A. Christie Poirot Investigates 113 The thing's a dark mystery!.. It's a hard nut to crack. 1968 P. Warner Sieges of Middle Ages iii. 63 This was a tougher nut than Tunbridge; whereas the latter had been a mere mound, Pevensey was a Roman fortress strengthened by Norman builders. 1989 Forbes 20 Mar. 33/2 The hard nut still to be cracked in Geneva concerns protection of intellectual property. < as lemmas |
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