hard cheese

8.9

A phrase showing little or no sympathy for someone's bad luck

idiom

: qué mala suerte

If you don't like their decision, hard cheese—there's nothing you can do about it.

Examples

When his vacation was canceled at the last minute, all his colleagues said, 'hard cheese!'
He failed his driving test again—hard cheese for him.
That's just hard cheese for him!
I lost my job, and my friends said, 'Oh, hard cheese!'
He failed his driving test again—hard cheese for him.
If you don't like their decision, hard cheese—there's nothing you can do about it.
When his vacation was canceled at the last minute, all his colleagues said, 'hard cheese!'

Synonyms

tough luck

vshard cheese

Informal

3 4.9

A short comment that says whether you feel sorry for someone's bad luck

is more often unsympathetic toward another person's misfortune

Antonyms

good luck

547 1.0

A fortunate event that happens by chance

Surface Forms

hard cheese singular

hard cheeses plural

Morphology

hard + cheese

The meanings of the constituents 'hard' and 'cheese' (literal toughness and a dairy product) do not combine to yield the idea of 'bad luck' or unsympathetic dismissal; the sense 'tough luck' is a dialectal idiom. This is language-specific and unpredictable from the parts, so a B1 learner who knows the words but not the expression would not be able to derive its meaning.

Etymology

Hard cheese may come from the image of getting a hard piece of cheese that is unwanted or too hard to eat, so you are unlucky and the seller will not help you. So people began to say hard cheese to mean 'bad luck' or 'no sympathy'.