hardy

See also: Hardy

English

Etymology

From Middle English hardy, hardi, from Old French hardi (“hardy, daring, stout, bold”).

Old French hardi is usually regarded as the past participle of hardir ("to harden, be bold, make bold"; compare Occitan ardir, Italian ardire), from Frankish *hardijan; but it may also have come directly from Frankish *hardi, a secondary form of Frankish *hard (compare Old High German harti, herti, secondary forms of Old High German hart (“hard”)); or even yet from Frankish *hardig (compare Middle Low German herdich (“persevering”), Old Danish hærdig, Norwegian herdig, Swedish härdig (“vigorous, courageous”)).

Cognate with hard. May have at some point also been surface analysed as hard + -y.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑɹdi/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑːdi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)di

Adjective

hardy (comparative hardier, superlative hardiest)

1. Having rugged physical strength; inured to fatigue or hardships.

   Synonyms: hearty, robust, rugged, strong

   • 1824, R. W. Dickson, “Hogs or Swine § Swing-tailed Breed or Sort”, in A Complete System of Improved Live Stock and Cattle Management; […] ‎^[1], volume 2, London, →OCLC, page 287:

     It is an useful sort of the smaller kind of hogs, that is hardy in its nature and of considerable weight in proportion to its size.

   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Even adding 1mm of thickness to the cardboard, to make it hardier, might use up a substantial forest when multiplied across hundreds of billions of boxes.

2. (botany) Able to survive adverse growing conditions.

   Synonyms: hearty, robust, rugged, strong

   A hardy plant is one that can withstand the extremes of climate, such as frost.

   • 1880, Arthur Herbert Church, Food: Some Account of Its Sources, Constituents and Uses‎^[3], London: Chapman and Hall, page 72:

     The oat is hardier than wheat, and ripens in higher latitudes.

   • 2012, David L. Culp, The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage, Timber Press, page 503:

     By watching where the snow melted first, I discovered warmer spots that I knew would be possible locations for late-winter bloomers or borderline hardy plants.

3. Brave and resolute.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 354:

     But he was not ſo hardy to abide
     That bitter ſtownd, but turning quicke aſide
     His light-foot beaſt, fled faſt away for feare:

4. Impudent.

Derived terms

• cold hardy
• hale and hardy
• half-hardy
• hardihead
• hardihood
• hardily
• hardiness
• Hardy
• hardy kiwi
• hardy perennial

 

Related terms

• foolhardy

Translations

inured to fatigue or hardships

• Bulgarian: кален (bg) (kalen), издръжлив (bg) (izdrǎžliv)
• Catalan: robust (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 頑強／顽强 (zh) (wánqiáng), 耐寒 (zh) (nàihán) (cold-proof)

• Czech: otužilý, odolný (cs)
• Danish: hårdfør, modstandsdygtig, stovt
• Finnish: kylmänkestävä, sitkeä (fi)
• French: robuste (fr), rustique (fr) (of a plant)
• German: abgehärtet (de), widerstandsfähig (de)
• Hungarian: szívós (hu), ellenálló (hu), edzett (hu)
• Icelandic: herkinn
• Irish: cróga, crógach, cróganta, cruadhéanta
• Italian: resistente (it), robusto (it)
• Japanese: 頑丈な (ja) (がんじょうな, ganjō na), 頑強な (ja) (がんきょうな, gankyō na)
• Kalmyk: чиирг (çiirg)
• Plautdietsch: hoatlich
• Portuguese: resistente (pt)
• Russian: выно́сливый (ru) (vynóslivyj), сто́йкий (ru) (stójkij), морозоусто́йчивый (ru) (morozoustójčivyj) (cold-proof), закалённый (ru) (zakaljónnyj) (seasoned)
• Scottish Gaelic: tapaidh, fulangach
• Spanish: robusto (es), resistente (es)

Noun

hardy (plural hardies)

1. (usually in the plural) Anything, especially a plant, that is hardy.
   • 2009 June 1, David Carr, “Cast Out, but Still Reporting”, in New York Times‎^[4]:

     Across the country, various bands of journalistic hardies — newsroom pros whose services are no longer salient to a crippled and disrupted information economy — have taken matters into their own hands.

2. A blacksmith's fuller or chisel, having a square shank for insertion into a square hole in an anvil.
3. hardy hole

Anagrams

• Hydra, hydra

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French hardi.

Adjective

hardy m (feminine singular hardye, masculine plural hardys, feminine plural hardyes)

1. hardy (having rugged physical strength)

Descendants

• French: hardi

Polish

Etymology

Borrowed from Czech hrdý. Displaced and doublet of gardy, an inherited form.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈxar.dɨ/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ardɨ
• Syllabification: har‧dy

Adjective

hardy (comparative bardziej hardy, superlative najbardziej hardy, derived adverb hardo)

1. haughty, supercilious, arrogant

   Synonyms: butny, dumny

Declension

Declension of hardy (hard)

singular					plural
	masculine animate	masculine inanimate	feminine	neuter	virile (= masculine personal)	non-virile
nominative	hardy		harda	harde	hardzi	harde
genitive	hardego		hardej	hardego	hardych
dative	hardemu		hardej	hardemu	hardym
accusative	hardego	hardy	hardą	harde	hardych	harde
instrumental	hardym		hardą	hardym	hardymi
locative	hardym		hardej	hardym	hardych

Derived terms

noun

• hardość

 

verbs

• hardzieć
• zhardzieć

 

Descendants

• → Kashubian: hardy

Further reading

• hardy in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• hardy in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• Wanda Decyk-Zięba, editor (2018-2022), “hardy”, in Dydaktyczny Słownik Etymologiczno-historyczny Języka Polskiego [A Didactic, Historical, Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language] (in Polish), →ISBN