hard times
104
3.1
- noun
:
tiempos difíciles
- These are hard times for families struggling to make ends meet.
- fall on hard times
- economic hard times
Weak men create bad times, bad or hard times create strong men.
- Weak men create bad times, bad or hard times create strong men.
- So in hard times, he's always there.
- So that was obviously a really hard time for our family.
- But we can only hope that these hard times garner strong men again.
- And so I've had some really hard times, but I've never wanted to give up.
- So I'd rather have hard times with you.
- But I have a much harder time seeing us able to abolish force.
- But hard times produce hard men.
- The title of the talk is finding true ground in hard times through love stories.
- I don't watch a lot of TV or movies, so I have a really hard time recognizing famous people.
- I just think that politicians have a really hard time doing any, any change.
Examples
-
These are hard times.
-
Best friends make the good times better and the hard times easier.
-
So these were quite hard times for a lot of people.
-
So that was obviously a really hard time for our family.
-
We'll get through these hard times.
-
This is a hard time for all of us.
-
These are hard times, Tom.
-
"Ronald and I are just going through some hard times, you know, with him laid off and all."
Fiction book (1996) -
We've been through some hard times.
-
Throughout these hard times, I have sheltered you and cared for you.
Synonyms
382
2.9
A period when someone has difficulty or trouble
134
3.1
A period when someone faces problems or a lot of stress
128
3.4
A time of serious difficulty, often with little money or food
71
4.9
A difficult time when you face many problems
22
3.2
Periods when people are in trouble and others must help them
10
8.1
A period when someone has many problems to deal with
5
6.0
Difficult experiences that teach you important life lessons
4
5.3
A situation or task that is hard to do
2
6.1
A time when someone has many problems and finds life difficult
1
7.0
A difficult time that is hard to get through
Antonyms
How Difficult
63
3.7
128
3.4
104
3.1
134
3.1
5
4.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a period of difficulty' is directly and transparently composed from 'hard' (difficult) + 'times' (periods), following a straightforward adjective+noun pattern. This composition is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'tiempos difíciles', French 'temps difficiles'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Hard times uses hard to mean difficult and times to mean periods in life. Think of a path you can hardly walk—those days are hard to get through, so the phrase means 'a period of difficulty'.