Brewer's: Hard as Nails

Stern, hard-hearted, unsympathetic; able to stand hard blows like nails. Religious bigotry, straitlacedness, rigid puritanical pharisaism, make men and women “hard as nails.”

“I know I'm as hard as nails already; I don't want to get more so.” —EdnaLyall: Donovan. chap. xxiii.

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