hard-boiled

• hardboiled, hard boiled

hard-boiled (comparative more hard-boiled, superlative most hard-boiled)

1. Cooked to a solid consistency. (of a boiled egg)
2. Callous and unsentimental. (of a person, especially a detective)
   • 1916 March 11, Charles E. Van Loan, “His Folks”, in Saturday Evening Post‎:

     He told me afterward that he tried to find his folks and square himself—and maybe it was the truth—but some of the hard-boiled townspeople found him, instead, and he had a running fight all the way to the depot.

   • 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 31:

     'Some big, hard-boiled egg meets up with a pretty face, and bingo! He cracks up and melts.'

   • 1934, James T. Farrell, chapter 17, in The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan:

     Christ, maybe that blond was only a bitch after all. Maybe she put out even to the punks. Come to think of it, she looked a little hard-boiled. The kind of a broad who knew a hell of a lot.

3. (literature, especially detective fiction) Written in a laconic, dispassionate, often ironic style for a realistic, unsentimental effect.

• soft-boiled

hard-boiled

1. simple past and past participle of hard-boil