the hard way
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.40 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
1
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
In a way that is more difficult than necessary; by adverse experience.
Example Sentences
- "He never asks for advice; he always does things the hard way."
- "They'll find out the hard way that there's no such thing as a free lunch."
- "I don't know how well seatbelts protect you, but I certainly don't want to find out the hard way, so I use them either way."
- "You can't assume that someone else will call an ambulance. I learnt that the hard way after crashing my bike."
Inflected Forms
the harder way (comparative)
the hardest way (superlative)