adjective
- Cookery. (of an egg) boiled in the shell long enough for the yolk and white to solidify.
- Informal. tough; unsentimental: a hard-boiled vice-squad detective.
- marked by a direct, clear-headed approach; realistic: a hard-boiled appraisal of the foreign situation.
- (of detective fiction) written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.
verb (used with object)
- to boil (an egg) until the yolk and white have become firm or solid.
adjective
- (of an egg) boiled until the yolk and white are solid
- informal
- tough, realistic
- cynical
also hardboiled, 1723 in reference to eggs, from hard + boiled. In transferred sense “severe, tough,” from 1886.