Meanings
- dateddialectalnot comparablesimileExtremely hard.
Mr. R. Davies writes from Warrington: […] any hard wood described as being as 'hard as Bràzil'; and so on, though these old provincialisms are fast dying out before the schools of to-day.
1894 October 6, R. Davies, quotee, “Literary Gossip”, in The Athenæum, number 3493, page 459, column 12 more examples
Why, the wood 's as hard as Brazil! He must have spent weeks and weeks about it, let alone the cleverness of thing. Our carpenters would find it a job to make another sich a one; it ought fetch sum'mut homesomdever.
1842 June, Edward Daniell, “The Old Coffer”, in The Court Magazine & Monthly Critic, volume IX, London: Dobbs & Co, →OCLC, page 431It was but last Night that, the Supper not being to madam's liking, she found the Mutton as sour as a wig, and the Potatoes as hard as Brazil; and she told me afterwards that she should never endure the Cook-maid, though the Wench had been as fess as Cox's pig to enter her service.
1901 August 24, “Wiltshire Words”, in Literature, number 201, London: The Times, page 191, column 1
Origin
Referencing the hardness of brazilwood.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
hard as brazil. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hard%20as%20brazil
“hard as brazil.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hard%20as%20brazil. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hard as brazil,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hard%20as%20brazil.
Source: hard as brazil on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.