hard-knock life
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of hard-knock life
First recorded in 1975–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It’s a morality tale about the hard-knock life of a performer that recalls the warm character studies of Ms. Swift’s earlier work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2025
But when I really close-read Annie’s hard-knock life, I couldn’t help but zero in on how bizarre it is—and how bizarre it is that we still love her so much.
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2024
But what became increasingly obvious with each crunchy step of survey work, is that a live tortoise lingering in this landscape is in for a hard-knock life.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 6, 2020
Rocky was a way of converting his hard-knock life into cinema – and money.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 24, 2016
On Broadway the characters did not appear as adults until after a somewhat dour prologue about the hard-knock life of ogres.
From New York Times ● Jul. 29, 2011
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
