What it means
A hard nut is someone who's tough to rattle, hard to push about, and not exactly easy to read. It can mean someone physically handy and a bit fearsome, or someone emotionally locked up tight and giving nothing away. Either way, they're not soft, and they're not folding just because someone's turned up with pressure.
Usage examples
"Do not let his quiet manner fool you, he is a proper hard nut underneath."
"The new gaffer is a hard nut, runs the team like a sergeant major."
"The new headteacher at the secondary school in Birmingham is a proper hard nut, fired the lazy deputy on the first day, restructured the entire timetable in three weeks, and the parent committee learned quickly not to bring nonsense to the monthly meeting unprepared."
"My grandfather was a hard nut his whole life, ran the family farm in Devon alone after my grandmother passed in nineteen seventy-eight, raised four children without ever asking for help, and the only time we saw him cry was at the funeral of his collie dog Bess."
"You can chat all you want, mate, but Shanice is a hard nut and she won't fold under pressure."
Where it comes from
It comes from the older English idea of a nut being hard to crack. The phrase hard nut to crack has been around for centuries, going back to early modern English, and hard nut later got used on its own for a person who's tough, stubborn, guarded, or difficult to deal with.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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