hard time of it
2
6.1
- idiom
- She has been having a hard time of it since she lost her job and struggles to pay the bills.
Examples
-
He's having a bit of a hard time of it.
-
So I had a hard time of it when JoAnn told me, in April, that she'd gone and gotten herself pregnant.
Fiction book (1990) -
Did you have a hard time of it?
Blog text (16) -
I was trying to connect things, and I was having a hard time of it.
Fiction book (1994) -
But in wartime, everyone has a hard time of it.
Fiction book (1998) -
The wounded returning from later wars had a much harder time of it.
Blog text (15) -
They had had a hard time of it their first winter.
Fiction book (1992) -
It was her way to dismiss what she couldn't control and put the best possible face on every failure, and that was what she was doing now, but it was hard; she was having a hard time of it.
Fiction book (2002) -
At this time, if we haven't released the fear and negativity we have accrued since the last upward step, we will be having a hard time of it physically.
Blog text (22) -
Most appear to be in their early 20s to early 30s, with one man, who looks like he's had a hard time of it, in his mid-40s.
Academic text (2011)
Synonyms
615
2.4
A hard part of a task that needs extra effort or is not easy to understand
522
2.9
A period when someone has difficulty or trouble
169
3.1
A period when someone faces problems or a lot of stress
129
3.4
A time of serious difficulty, often with little money or food
96
3.1
A period when people have many problems with money or daily life
70
4.9
A difficult time when you face many problems
34
9.1
A time of great trouble and suffering
12
8.1
A period when someone has many problems to deal with
11
6.0
Difficult experiences that teach you important life lessons
8
5.7
A time with many problems
7
5.3
A situation or task that is hard to do
5
3.2
Periods when people are in trouble and others must help them
2
3.9
A difficult time that is hard to get through
1
7.0
A difficult time that is hard to get through
A long time when someone suffers a lot
Antonyms
How Difficult
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'a period of difficulty' is directly derivable from combining 'hard' (difficult) + 'time' (a period), so a learner who knows those words can infer 'hard time' as a difficult period; the final particle 'of it' functions as a grammatical adjunct and does not obscure the basic composition. This construction and meaning are cross-linguistically common and follow standard adjective + noun composition, making the phrase immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Hard time of it may come from a simple picture of time as a path you must travel. If that path is hard, you have to struggle to get through, so the phrase means 'a period of difficulty'.