Jump To:

• hard-pressed
  hard-pressed

  adjective

  heavily burdened or oppressed, as by overwork or financial difficulties; harried; put-upon.
• hard pressed
  hard pressed

  Overburdened, put upon, as in With all these bills to pay we find ourselves hard pressed. [c. 1800]

hard-pressed

American  

[hahrd-prest] / ˈhɑrdˈprɛst /

Or hardpressed

adjective

1. heavily burdened or oppressed, as by overwork or financial difficulties; harried; put-upon.

   Synonyms:

   beleaguered

---

hard-pressed British  

adjective

1. in difficulties

   the swimmer was hard-pressed

2. subject to severe competition

3. subject to severe attack

4. closely pursued

---

hard pressed Idioms  

1. Overburdened, put upon, as in With all these bills to pay we find ourselves hard pressed. [c. 1800]

---

Etymology

Origin of hard-pressed

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more irresistible character on television than Cirie Fields on the 50th edition of “Survivor,” or one more discussed than “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star Taylor Frankie Paul.

From Los Angeles Times • May 26, 2026

It’s an incredible level of control that investors would be hard-pressed to find in publicly traded companies.

From Barron's • May 20, 2026

Despite piling additional pressure on already hard-pressed Americans, the latest GDP figures out this week showed the economy motoring along in the first three months of 2026.

From BBC • May 2, 2026

I’m hard-pressed to think of any movie I’d watch four times in a month if I didn’t genuinely admire it on some level.

From Salon • Apr. 5, 2026

Even in the Langley Technical Library, which was arguably the worlds best collection of information on powered flight, engineers were hard-pressed to find books on spaceflight.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly