hardy

comparative hardier · superlative hardiest

1. Having rugged physical strength; inured to fatigue or hardships.

   It is an useful sort of the smaller kind of hogs, that is hardy in its nature and of considerable weight in proportion to its size.

   1824, R. W. Dickson, “Hogs or Swine § Swing-tailed Breed or Sort”, in A Complete System of Improved Live Stock and Cattle Management; […] , volume 2, London, →OCLC, page 287

   1 more example

   Even adding 1mm of thickness to the cardboard, to make it hardier, might use up a substantial forest when multiplied across hundreds of billions of boxes.

   2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: hearty, robust, rugged, strong

2. biologyAble to survive adverse growing conditions, especially frost.

   A hardy plant is one that can withstand the extremes of climate, such as frost.

   2 more examples

   The oat is hardier than wheat, and ripens in higher latitudes.

   1880, Arthur Herbert Church, Food: Some Account of Its Sources, Constituents and Uses, London: Chapman and Hall, page 72

   By watching where the snow melted first, I discovered warmer spots that I knew would be possible locations for late-winter bloomers or borderline hardy plants.

   2012, David L. Culp, The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage, Timber Press, page 503

   Synonyms: hearty, robust, rugged, strong · Antonyms: tender

3. Brave and resolute.

   But he was not ſo hardy to abide That bitter ſtownd, but turning quicke aſide His light-foot beaſt, fled faſt away for feare:

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 354

4. Impudent.

plural hardies

1. plural normallyAnything, especially a plant, that is hardy.

   Across the country, various bands of journalistic hardies — newsroom pros whose services are no longer salient to a crippled and disrupted information economy — have taken matters into their own hands.

   2009 June 1, David Carr, “Cast Out, but Still Reporting”, in New York Times

2. A blacksmith's fuller or chisel, having a square shank for insertion into a square hole in an anvil.
3. A hardy hole.

1. historicalA former town in Manchester, England, now absorbed into Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

plural Hardies · plural Hardys

1. A common surname transferred from the nickname, originally a nickname for a hardy person.

   Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), English novelist and poet.

2. A male given name transferred from the surname.
3. A number of places in the United States:
   1. A minor city in Sharp County and Fulton County, Arkansas.
   2. An unincorporated community in Mendocino County, California.
   3. A minor city in Humboldt County, Iowa.
   4. An unincorporated community and coal town in Pike County, Kentucky.
   5. An unincorporated community in Grenada County, Mississippi.
   6. A census-designated place in Cascade County, Montana.
   7. A village in Nuckolls County, Nebraska.
   8. A township in Holmes County, Ohio.
   9. An unincorporated community in Franklin County, Virginia.
4. A township in Parry Sound District, Ontario, Canada.
5. A hamlet in Rural Municipality of The Gap No. 39, Saskatchewan, Canada.
6. A locality east of Peterborough, South Australia.