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• 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

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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

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hard pressed Idioms  

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

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Etymology

Origin of hard-pressed

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hard-pressed hard pressed

And I’ll say it again: You would be hard-pressed to find a clearer constitutional guarantee than this.

From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2026

“In a blind tasting, unless they’re an expert, people would be hard-pressed to know that it is not a Scotch.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026

The agreement re-opens the Strait of Hormuz, Trump says, taking the pressure off the global economy and the real lives of hundreds of millions of hard-pressed people around the world.

From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2026

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

Unlike the Box at Coxsackie, which had seemed a true solitary confinement, with inmates hard-pressed to communicate with each other through solid-steel doors with Lexan windows, the cells here were barred.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover

An astonishing number of them opened here, in Southern California, although you would be hard pressed to find many nowadays.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

Goals, assists and consistent performances throughout the season, I think you would been hard pressed to find somebody who has delivered as much as Harry, I really do.

From BBC ● Mar. 1, 2026

The proliferation of scientific journals has created an almost insatiable need, and professors on the treadmill of grants, research and publishing are hard pressed to fit in such volunteering.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026

Throw in the affordability crisis — from food to energy bills — and you have an economic outlook that Nostradamus would be hard pressed to predict.

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 15, 2025

As I shook it, something hard pressed into my palm.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss