hard yards
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.47 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The key effort in completing a difficult task.
Example Sentences
- "do the hard yards"
- "put in the hard yards"
- "As with coupons and vouchers, there is seemingly no end to the opportunities that exist to improve a Web site's traffic flow by giving something away for nothing—as long as users are prepared to put in the hard yards, of course."
- "Those clever women at the frontier of fashion do all the hard yards for us, every month, by attending the shows in London, Paris and New York."
- "In tough conditions, with no room for complacency, the campaign will need to slog out the hard yards, give it 110% and leave it all on the field."
- "The couple had already put in the hard yards: Fred started out in '60s freakbeat combos The Weeds and Lollipop Shoppe, with Toody joining him in early '80s punk trio The Rats."
Etymology
A sporting analogy referring to the game of rugby football, where making progress on the field, in measurements of yards, may lead to accomplishment and victory. Alternatively derived from sailing, when furling or unfurling the canvas from certain (perhaps higher) spars was both dangerous and difficult.
Inflected Forms
the hard yards (canonical, plural)