school of hard knocks
1
7.4
- idiom
- /skuːl əv hɑrd nɑks/
- Informal
:
escuela de la vida
- Many successful entrepreneurs attribute their resilience to the school of hard knocks that taught them valuable life lessons.
I mean, that was like the school of Hard Knocks for business.
- I mean, that was like the school of Hard Knocks for business.
- You know, how does someone really learn distribution, though, without really having gone through sort of the, the hard school of Hard Knocks with it?
Examples
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Everything I learned was school of Hard Knocks and NCIX was a stupendous proving ground for me.
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You have to learn through the school of hard knocks.
Blog text (20) -
I mean, that was like the school of Hard Knocks for business.
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To give 'em kind of the school of hard knocks.
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It's also part of the school of hard knocks for the future.
Blog text (7) -
So anyone who puts that they went to the school of Hard Knocks in their education section or graduated from it.
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He was a very well-educated man from the school of hard knocks.
Blog text (17) -
So I learned on the street school of Hard Knocks that in the real world you don't get stickers and you don't get grades.
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So I learned on the street, the school of Hard Knocks, that in the real world you don't get stickers and you don't get grades.
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Growing up in a tough neighborhood was like attending the school of hard knocks for him, shaping his character in ways no classroom ever could.
Synonyms
76
5.4
To learn something through mistakes and problems instead of taking an easier path
5
6.0
Difficult experiences that teach you important life lessons
Learning practical skills and wisdom from life and real problems rather than from school
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase links 'school' (a source of learning) with 'hard knocks' (difficult experiences), so a learner who knows the constituent words can plausibly infer the general idea of learning from hardship rather than formal education. However, the construction is a conventionalized metaphor and the collocation 'school of hard knocks' is idiomatic, so the precise idiomatic sense and usage may not be fully predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
School of hard knocks gives a picture of life as a school where you learn from hard knocks - the tough blows and failures people face. So it means learning from difficult life 'experience' rather than from formal school.