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hard-pressed
[ hahrd-prest ]
hard-pressed
adjective
- in difficulties
the swimmer was hard-pressed
- subject to severe competition
- subject to severe attack
- closely pursued
Word History and Origins
Origin of hard-pressed1
Idioms and Phrases
Overburdened, put upon, as in With all these bills to pay we find ourselves hard pressed . [c. 1800]Example Sentences
I am not the most financially literate person (I would be hard-pressed to articulate the term “junk bond”).
One would be hard-pressed to find an earlier opponent of the Nazis than Dietrich von Hildebrand.
He says he likes Truffaut's work, but is hard pressed to think of a title.
It was a cutthroat move from investors, hard-pressed to turn a profit on a film that was a domestic disappointment.
But Baghdad would be hard pressed to extend that invitation to Syria.
The Spaniards, hard pressed on all sides, seemed determined to make their last stand in the old citadel.
But his lips were hard pressed and his eyes became suddenly contemptuous, then smiling.
Herron's men were hard pressed, but grimly they held to their position, awaiting the arrival of Blunt.
But the war had reached a critical stage; the Confederate army was hard pressed on every side.
Hard-pressed brick of a light colour makes an excellent outer wall-surface.
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Definitions 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.
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