hard put
adjectiveDefinition of hard put
: barely able : faced with difficulty or perplexity
was hard put to find an explanation
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Synonyms for hard put
Synonyms
baffled, confounded, hard-pressed, nonplussed (also nonplused), perplexed
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Examples of hard put in a Sentence
she was hard put to explain her department's excessive expenditures
Recent Examples on the Web
Almost choked by automobiles that are usually left home in garages by would-be riders, the lots were hard put to find room for the vehicles of later-arriving shoppers . — Scott Harrison, latimes.com, "From the Archives: Parking lot jammed by transit strike," 19 June 2019 People crowded into slums, shantytowns and favelas from where they were hard put to reach jobs. — The Economist, "Shining light on Latin America’s homicide epidemic," 5 Apr. 2018 Old-fashioned undertakers are hard put to find their place in such antics. — The Economist, "Why undertakers are worried," 12 Apr. 2018 Having enacted so many new gun laws last year, state legislators were hard put to find new restrictions to pass this year. — Dan Walters, San Francisco Chronicle, "California’s new gun law is a puzzler," 19 Oct. 2017These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'hard put.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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