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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

The effort has taxed the company’s supply chain, which covers a network of capacity-constrained subcontractors that are hard-pressed to surge their own output on short notice.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

And we’re hard-pressed to think of anyone who’s won a governor’s race after struggling to answer a question about whether Thanksgiving should be canceled.

From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2026

In another area, intermittent strikes by hard-pressed health workers who say they haven’t been paid in months have also disrupted attempts to contain the virus.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

A person familiar with the process but not authorized to speak about it publicly said Hackman Capital will be hard-pressed to pay its debt in light of challenges facing the industry.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2026

"Esgred was the first ship he built. He named her after his mother. I would be hard-pressed to say which he loves best."

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

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

When Ronan Keating answered a newspaper advert to audition for Boyzone in 1993, he would have been hard pressed to believe more than 30 years later he would still be hitting the stage.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2025

To be clear, if CEOs were paying attention to the body of evidence on this topic that’s available and growing, they’d be hard pressed to ignore one recurring conclusion.

From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2025

Encanis was now hard pressed and bent his whole thought upon escape.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss