hard as nails


Unyielding, callous, unsympathetic, as in Don't ask her for a contribution—she's hard as nails. This expression has replaced the 14th-century simile hard as flint stone and presumably alludes to the rigidity of nails.

Words Nearby hard as nails

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use hard as nails in a sentence

  • How she come to be related to that hard-as-nails Joe Stagg is a puzzler.

    Carolyn of the Corners | Ruth Belmore Endicott
  • "Hard-as-nails" the girls sometimes called her, for she coddled nobody and expected the utmost from each one's capacity.