hard-nosed
"hard-nosed" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hard-nosed” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Guided by practical experience and observation rather than by theory.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hard-nosed · hard-nosed · English
hard-nosed · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hard-nosed |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “hard-nosed” in English
Rare enough to double-check
hard-nosed is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
hard-nosed doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: hard + nosed; originally referred to hard-tipped bullets. The correct English form is hard-nosed, spelled H-A-R-D---N-O-S-E-D.
Definition
- 1Guided by practical experience and observation rather than by theory.
- 2Hardheaded, stubborn.
- 3Tough and relentlessly practical and thus not given to sentiment.
Etymology
hard + nosed; originally referred to hard-tipped bullets.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.