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hard-won

ADJECTIVE

difficult

Synonyms

STRONGEST

ambitious arduous burdensome challenging crucial demanding laborious onerous painful problematic severe strenuous tough troublesome

WEAK

backbreaker bothersome difficile easier said than done effortful exacting formidable galling gargantuan heavy herculean immense intricate irritating labored no picnic not easy operose problem prohibitive rigid stiff titanic toilsome trying unyielding uphill upstream wearisome

Antonyms

STRONGEST

easy effortless facile helpful nice trivial

WEAK

calm free friendly manageable plain simple sociable straightforward uncomplicated

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Thermal imaging gave him a huge advantage for spotting the cats, but otherwise he relied on hard-won experience.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 30, 2026

In what was once a cottage industry, startups worth billions now pay humans to distill their hard-won subject-area expertise into lessons for the bots.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 17, 2026

They have fund economics, investor relationships, and hard-won reputations that make fighting for these assets the rational move.

From Barron's • Feb. 24, 2026

Her life has included far more than skating, though, and every one of her students benefit from the hard-won wisdom she learned along the way.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 1, 2026

Smelling to the sky, bleeding in the hand, and robbed of part of my hard-won food, I threw wood on the fire and sent an enormous shaft of light into the night.

From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

hard-won

Example Sentences

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