hard as nails
Preserved but no longer current.
Stern, hard-hearted, unsympa- thetic; able to stand hard blows like nails. The phrase is used with both a physical and a figurative sense; a man in perfect training is "as hard as nails," and bigotry, straitlacedness, rigid puritanical phansaism, make people "hard as nails.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “hard as nails” mean?
Stern, hard-hearted, unsympa- thetic; able to stand hard blows like nails. The phrase is used with both a physical and a figurative sense; a man in perfect training is "as hard as nails," and bigotry, straitlacedness, rigid puritanical phansaism, make people "hard as nails.
Is “hard as nails” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.