hardtack
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of hardtack
Explanation
Hardtack is an old-fashioned type of bread or cracker that sailors used to bring with them during long voyages. The taste and texture of hardtack wasn't popular, but it lasted a long time without spoiling. If you take a close look at the word hardtack, you'll have a clear sense of how sailors felt about having to eat it day after day. The hard part is accurate — it was so dry and tough that it was difficult to bite. Tack once meant "food," but in dialect it was specifically "bad food." Hardtack had many alternate names, including "soda crackers" and "sea biscuits," but also "dog biscuits" and "molar breakers."
Vocabulary lists containing hardtack
The American Civil War
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A Toast to Bread
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The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
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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.
The Scottish writer would certainly have been surprised to see David Oyelowo playing Long John Silver, which is one of the six-part series’ better innovations, despite Mr. Oyelowo chewing the scenery like hardtack.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Cramped inside vessels overladen with precious cargo, crewmembers subsisted on a miserable diet of hardtack, an unleavened bread, and salted meat and fish that routinely spoiled and left many gravely ill.
From Barron's ● Apr. 28, 2026
He made a tidy sum selling the government hard, dry bread and biscuits - known as hardtack - for Union soldier rations.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 30, 2020
Some sailors use pilot bread — a thick, crackerlike item similar to Colonial-era hardtack, which doesn’t go stale — to settle their stomachs.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2018
Everything seemed to be listed there—from hardtack to copper nails—from sextants to coffeepots.
From "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham
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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.
