hard-boiled
Cooking. (of an egg) boiled in the shell long enough for the yolk and white to solidify.
Informal. tough; unsentimental: a hard-boiled vice-squad detective.
marked by a direct, clear-headed approach; realistic: a hard-boiled appraisal of the foreign situation.
(of detective fiction) written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.
Origin of hard-boiled
1Other words from hard-boiled
- hard-boiledness, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
British Dictionary definitions for hard-boiled
(of an egg) boiled until the yolk and white are solid
informal
tough, realistic
cynical
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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