hard-boiled
adj1
Of a boiled egg, cooked to a solid consistency.
2
Figuratively Of a person, especially a detective, callous and unsentimental.
- He told me afterward that he tried to find his folks and square himself—and maybe it was the truth—but some of the hard-boiled townspeople found him, instead, and he had a running fight all the way to the depot.1916 March 11, Charles E. Van Loan, “His Folks”, in Saturday Evening Post:
- 'Some big, hard-boiled egg meets up with a pretty face, and bingo! He cracks up and melts.'1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 31:
1 more example
- Christ, maybe that blond was only a bitch after all. Maybe she put out even to the punks. Come to think of it, she looked a little hard-boiled. The kind of a broad who knew a hell of a lot.1934, James T. Farrell, chapter 17, in The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan:
3
Literature, Media, Publishing Figuratively Written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.
Especially detective fiction
- Derived terms
- hard-boiledness