die hard

D

die hard

Meaning

  • disappear or change very slowly
  • change or disappear gradually.
  • to be daunting to end or stop.
  • individuals who are stubbornly reactionary or conservative.
  • resisting change strongly.
  • a determined person.
  • a person who displays such resistance or loyalty.
  • take a long time to cease to exist or be dropped from consideration.

Example Sentences

  1. This proposal has some radical parts that will die hard.
  2. Prejudices usually die hard.
  3. The diehard football fans planned a rebirth of their city’s team.
  4. I have been a diehard video game fan since I was 19. However, I still find playing them interesting now that I’m 40.
  5. When the attacks descended upon the soldiers, the most die hard of them fled to avoid death. The rest were immediately routed and killed, and several fell into a large ditch, never to come out of it.
  6. James is a diehard Wintel user, even though Macs are popular. There’s something about the loyalty consumers have toward particular brands.
  7. Dreams die hard.
  8. Although habits die hard, they can change.
  9. Old memories, particularly in such a town, die hard.
  10. The conventional methods of learning new languages die hard.
  11. Die-hard boarders are snatching up second homes here, but so far it has managed to stay affordable.
  12. On the playground, a few die-hards were organizing a small fundraising event.

Origin

This idiom comes from the words die and hard. Die means to cease to exist, while hard means difficult. The phrase alludes to struggling against death. People use the idiom to express that something takes a long time to stop existing or get discarded. The phrase was used in Psychologis, a book published in 1703. The author used the idiom to describe the condemned man’s approach toward death.

In 1811, at the War of Albuera, as the Peninsular battle took place, the commander of Britain’s 57th Regiment of Foot urged the soldiers under him to “die hard.” The soldiers acted with a lot of heroism, so the regiment was nicknamed the Diehards. The idiom was also used to describe the criminals who passed away resisting to the last in London’s Tyburn gallows. Later in the century, people attached the name to different groups in British politics that opposed change unwaveringly.

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