HARD-BOILED


Meaning of HARD-BOILED in English

— hard-boiledness , n.

/hahrd"boyld"/ , adj.

1. Cookery. (of an egg) boiled in the shell long enough for the yolk and white to solidify.

2. Informal. tough; unsentimental: a hard-boiled vice-squad detective.

3. marked by a direct, clear-headed approach; realistic: a hard-boiled appraisal of the foreign situation.

4. (of detective fiction) written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.

[ 1715-25; 1895-80 for def. 2; HARD + BOILED ]

Random House Webster's Unabridged English dictionary.      Полный английский словарь Вебстер - Random House .