What's the difference between hard and harder?

Hard


Definition:

  • (superl.) Not easily penetrated, cut, or separated into parts; not yielding to pressure; firm; solid; compact; -- applied to material bodies, and opposed to soft; as, hard wood; hard flesh; a hard apple.
  • (superl.) Difficult, mentally or judicially; not easily apprehended, decided, or resolved; as a hard problem.
  • (superl.) Difficult to accomplish; full of obstacles; laborious; fatiguing; arduous; as, a hard task; a disease hard to cure.
  • (superl.) Difficult to resist or control; powerful.
  • (superl.) Difficult to bear or endure; not easy to put up with or consent to; hence, severe; rigorous; oppressive; distressing; unjust; grasping; as, a hard lot; hard times; hard fare; a hard winter; hard conditions or terms.
  • (superl.) Difficult to please or influence; stern; unyielding; obdurate; unsympathetic; unfeeling; cruel; as, a hard master; a hard heart; hard words; a hard character.
  • (superl.) Not easy or agreeable to the taste; stiff; rigid; ungraceful; repelling; as, a hard style.
  • (superl.) Rough; acid; sour, as liquors; as, hard cider.
  • (superl.) Abrupt or explosive in utterance; not aspirated, sibilated, or pronounced with a gradual change of the organs from one position to another; -- said of certain consonants, as c in came, and g in go, as distinguished from the same letters in center, general, etc.
  • (superl.) Wanting softness or smoothness of utterance; harsh; as, a hard tone.
  • (superl.) Rigid in the drawing or distribution of the figures; formal; lacking grace of composition.
  • (superl.) Having disagreeable and abrupt contrasts in the coloring or light and shade.
  • (adv.) With pressure; with urgency; hence, diligently; earnestly.
  • (adv.) With difficulty; as, the vehicle moves hard.
  • (adv.) Uneasily; vexatiously; slowly.
  • (adv.) So as to raise difficulties.
  • (adv.) With tension or strain of the powers; violently; with force; tempestuously; vehemently; vigorously; energetically; as, to press, to blow, to rain hard; hence, rapidly; as, to run hard.
  • (adv.) Close or near.
  • (v. t.) To harden; to make hard.
  • (n.) A ford or passage across a river or swamp.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Lucy and Ed will combine coverage of hard and breaking news with a commitment to investigative journalism, which their track record so clearly demonstrates”.
  • (2) Sierra Leone is one of the three West Africa nations hit hard by an Ebola epidemic this year.
  • (3) Topical and systemic antibiotic therapy is common in dermatology, yet it is hard to find a rationale for a particular route in some diseases.
  • (4) Given Australia’s number one position as the worst carbon emitter per capita among major western nations it seems hardly surprising that islanders from Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and other small island developing states have been turning to Australia with growing exasperation demanding the country demonstrate an appropriate response and responsibility.
  • (5) They had learned through hard experience what Frederick Douglass once taught -- that freedom is not given, it must be won, through struggle and discipline, persistence and faith.
  • (6) In 60 rhesus monkeys with experimental renovascular malignant arterial hypertension (25 one-kidney and 35 two-kidney model animals), we studied the so-called 'hard exudates' or white retinal deposits in detail (by ophthalmoscopy, and stereoscopic color fundus photography and fluorescein fundus angiography, on long-term follow-up).
  • (7) It is a moment to be grateful for what remains of Labour's hard left: an amendment to scrap the cap was at least tabled by John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn but stood no chance.
  • (8) She stopped working only when the pain made it hard for her to get to work.
  • (9) He was reclusive, I know that, and he was often given a hard time for it.
  • (10) This defeat, though, is hardly a good calling card for the main job.
  • (11) Since this test is easily performed and hardly stresses the patient, it should routinely be the initial one for the diagnosis of renal osteopathy.
  • (12) Never become so enamored of your own smarts that you stop signing up for life’s hard classes.
  • (13) But I don't wish to be too hard on the judge for not taking that view.
  • (14) Our campaign has been going for some time and each step in our progress has been hard won, by campaigners paid and volunteer alike.
  • (15) I am rooting hard for you.” Ronald Reagan simply told his former vice-president Bush: “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.” By 10.30am Michelle Obama and Melania Trump will join the outgoing and incoming presidents in a presidential limousine to drive to the Capitol.
  • (16) All the same, it's hard to approach the school, which charges nearly £28,000 for boarders and nearly £19,000 for day girls and is sometimes called "the girls' Eton", without a few prejudices.
  • (17) Governmental officials as well as medical scientists in Taiwan have worked hard in recent years to develop and to implement various measures, such as prenatal diagnosis and neonatal screening, to lower the incidence of hereditary diseases and mental retardation in the population.
  • (18) Cooper, who was briefly a social worker in Los Angeles, also suggests working hard to build a rapport with colleagues in hotdesking situations.
  • (19) Critics of wind power peddle the same old myths about investment in new energy sources adding to families' fuel bills , preferring to pick a fight with people concerned about the environment, than stand up to vested interests in the energy industry, for the hard-pressed families and pensioners being ripped off by the energy giants.
  • (20) The spirit is great here, the players work very hard, we kept the belief when we were in third place and now we are here.

Harder


Definition:

  • (n.) A South African mullet, salted for food.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But after 26.2 miles of pain it may be harder to keep that smile on his face.
  • (2) We were concerned that the publication of this contract and the precedent it may set for future agreements could make it harder to do this.
  • (3) Indeed, with the pageantry already knocked off the top of the news by reports from Old Trafford, the very idea of a cohesive coalition programme about anything other than cuts looks that bit harder to sustain.
  • (4) In a 2013 Politifact interview , the author of the Urban Institute study, Stan Dorn, said: “It makes sense that as time goes by … health insurance coverage has greater impact on health outcomes.” The specific numbers might be hard to agree upon, and even harder to forecast if the Republican bill is passed.
  • (5) Among possible causes for the increase in deaths in the Mediterranean this year, the agency cited a worsening quality of vessels and smugglers’ tactics to avoid detection by authorities, such as sending many boats out at the same time, which makes the work of rescuers harder.
  • (6) Across conditions intrinsically motivated subjects worked harder than did extrinsically motivated subjects; all of them worked harder under conditions of regulation of reinforcement matched to their motivational orientation (i.e., intrinsically motivated subjects under self-regulation, extrinsically motivated subjects under externally imposed reinforcement) than under the contrary condition.
  • (7) If you get a foothold even slightly wrong, it makes the next move feel even harder."
  • (8) It’s so much harder to get there because the path is so much more difficult.
  • (9) Link to video The road is likely to get harder for the campaign against Isis.
  • (10) That is why the impact of the world crisis on the pound and the British economy today is likely to be more catastrophic than on any other major western economy - and full recovery may well be harder.
  • (11) And then her drug use got harder, and more desperate, and then it wasn't funny any more; and then, when she was trying to clean up, she was dead, gone to join "the stupid club", as Kurt Cobain's mother described all the rock stars who end up dead at 27.
  • (12) It was found that those invited by letter, rather than opportunistically during a routine consultation, thought their appointment time harder to keep.
  • (13) Surfaces of the specimens made with slurry water were significantly harder than those of specimens made with distilled water.
  • (14) He seems able to feel great emotion for humanity and animals in general, but finds it harder one-on-one.
  • (15) Playing, interfering with erroneous beliefs about sexual arousal, and avoiding helping the workhorse work harder are the trust of this paper.
  • (16) Their secrecy and diminished footprint make them harder than conventional wars to oppose and hold to account – though the backlash in countries bearing the brunt is bound to grow.
  • (17) The centre-right government of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy has taken a harder line regarding its claim on the territory.
  • (18) It’s going to be harder in Zurich, because there’s going to be a lot more eight-metre jumpers,” he says, citing the reigning champion, Christian Reif, who has jumped 8.49m this season, as his main opposition Rutherford won gold in Glasgow with a modest leap of 8.20m but, as he points out, the chilly conditions were hardly conducive to leaping far.
  • (19) There are aspects here that will always lie beyond: a coherent playing culture, a driving regional identity, the ability not just to make top-class players but to buy them and make them better, which is harder than it sounds.
  • (20) Those who were used to travelling abroad have already had to scale back as the rouble made the cost of visiting foreign cities prohibitive; and rising food prices have made it harder to balance the books for many families.