HARDNESS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Hardness

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/hˈɑrdnəs/ Listen

noun

Hardness n.

The quality or state of being hard, literally or figuratively. "The habit of authority also had given his manners some peremptory hardness."

(Min.) The cohesion of the particles on the surface of a body, determined by its capacity to scratch another, or be itself scratched; measured among minerals on a scale of which diamond and talc form the extremes.

(Chem.) The peculiar quality exhibited by water which has mineral salts dissolved in it. Such water forms an insoluble compound with soap, and is hence unfit for washing purposes. Note: This quality is caused by the presence of calcium carbonate, causing temporary hardness which can be removed by boiling, or by calcium sulphate, causing permanent hardness which can not be so removed, but may be improved by the addition of sodium carbonate.

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Etymology of 'Hardness'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Hardness" Quotes from Famous Books

... direct it better and with less friction. Indeed, I am acquainted with no middle-class woman at all who could direct any of these poor men's households as their own wives so noisily and so cleverly do. Mrs Widger does not attempt to gain her own way by sheer force and hardness, not even with the children; she bends to every current; but she never breaks, and finally prevails. Like most West-country people, she has more staying power than visible energy. By going not straight over the hills, like a Roman road, but round by the valleys and level ...

— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... A new hardness in Dean's voice sent a faint chill of doubt over Gordon. Was it possible that he wouldn't ...

— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... the presence of the king. I cannot tell what had passed between those two, nor do I suppose that any man will ever know; but Offa was more himself, save that on his face was a deep sadness, and no trace of hardness or ...

— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... forms, even as the life springeth up, and yet hath not its dark beginning in the Center as the PHUR hath, but after the flash of fire, when the sour dark form is terrified, where the hardness is turned into pliant sharpness, and where the second will (viz. the will of nature, which is called the Anguish) ariseth, there Mercurius hath its original. For MER is the shivering wheel, very horrible, sharp, venomous, and hostile; which assimulateth ...

— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... presented herself, with a dogged resignation singularly unlike her customary manner. Her eyes had a set look of hardness; her lips were fast closed; her usually colorless complexion had faded to a strange grayish pallor. If her dead husband could have risen from the grave, and warned Mr. Keller, he would have said, "Once or twice in my life, I have seen ...

— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

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