Etymology

hard-ass

Today it means: Tough, uncompromising and inflexible. Full definition →

English hard ← Middle English hard ← Old English heard
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*kret-der.?
  2. Proto-Germanic*harduz
  3. Proto-West Germanic*hard(ī)
  4. Old Englishheard
  5. Middle Englishhard
  6. Englishhard
  7. English todayhard-ass

From hard + -ass.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.