Meaning of hard-boiled in English

hard-boiled

adjective

/ˌhɑːrdˈbɔɪld/ uk

/ˌhɑːdˈbɔɪld/

hard-boiled adjective (EGG)

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A hard-boiled egg has been heated in its shell in boiling water until both the white and yellow parts are solid.

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hard-boiled adjective (STORY)

used to describe a style of story, usually about crime and detectives (= people who solve crimes), that includes unpleasant or violent details:

This is a series that comes from the tradition of hard-boiled detective novels.

used to describe a typical character from this style of story, who is strong and determined and shows little emotion:

The film stars Kathleen Turner as the hard-boiled detective of Sarah Paretsky's novel.

He's hard-boiled, he smokes and drinks, he's too wrapped up in his work to have satisfying relationships.

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Each tale is told in a different style: ghost story, hard-boiled mystery, science fiction.
It's the classic hard-boiled crime plot.
His prose and characters borrow a bit from Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled L. A. noirs.
Frank Miller's stark, hard-boiled graphic novels
hard-boiled private detectives like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe

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Books: kinds of books

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Strong-willed

(Definition of hard-boiled from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

hard-boiled | Intermediate English

hard-boiled

adjective

/ˈhɑrdˈbɔɪld/

hard-boiled adjective (EGG)

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(of an egg) boiled in its shell until both the white and yellow parts are solid

hard-boiled adjective (PERSON)

appearing not to have emotions or weaknesses:

a hard-boiled detective

(Definition of hard-boiled from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of hard-boiled

hard-boiled

Despite the breakneck urgency of the action, the hard-boiled story drips with laconic cool.

From NPR

The "crime" section contains those hard-boiled detective stories, but it also contains this other genre, which is about the criminal protagonist.

From The Verge

Still, to the most hard-boiled of baseball men, even those numbers could be tempered.

From ESPN

After peeling the hard-boiled eggs, soak them in a mixture of soy and sake for extra flavor.

From Huffington Post

Their school of literature came to be known as the hard-boiled detective style.

From San Francisco Chronicle

The design looks a bit like a hard-boiled egg.

From Los Angeles Times

There was always a jar of hard-boiled eggs in vinegar.

From OregonLive.com

Messy real life intrudes on the hard-boiled detective novel trope of a case-cracking clue contained in the secret diary.

From The Atlantic

While the original series was a macabre set of books that resembled penny-dreadfuls, this is hard-boiled detective fiction for young adults.

From A.V. Club

Oddly enough, he had trouble eating and digesting bananas and hard-boiled eggs.

From CBS Local

However, the cost of hard-boiled eggs, which require the shell, would rise dramatically.

From Heritage.org

There's the politician, the businessman, the street philosopher, the acclaimed scribe of hard-boiled fiction, the capitalist, and the gangsta.

From A.V. Club

Rich in protein, essential fats and vitamins, hard-boiled eggs are filling and easy to prepare.

From Huffington Post

He was also clearly more worried than his sister and her hard-boiled daughter.

From The Atlantic

I prepared my breakfast of hard-boiled eggs a bit differently this morning.

From NPR

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of hard-boiled?