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The pochard; -- called also dunair, and dunker, or dun-curre.

Hard; harsh; severe; rough; toilsome. [R.] The winter is severe, and life is dure and rude. W. H. Russell.

Hardship; constraint; pressure; imprisonment; restraint of liberty. The agreements . . . made with the landlords during the time of slavery, are only the effect of duress and force. Burke.

The fruit of the durio. It is oval or globular, and eight or ten inches long. It has a hard prickly rind, containing a soft, cream-colored pulp, of a most delicious flavor and a very offensive odor. The seeds are roasted and eaten like chestnuts.

Hardness; firmness. Sir T. Browne.

An instrument for measuring the degree of hardness; especially, an instrument for testing the relative hardness of steel rails and the like.

Hard. [Obs. & R.]

r to its inhabitants. Dutch auction. See under Auction. -- Dutch cheese, a small, pound, hard cheese, made from skim milk. -- Dutch clinker, a kind of brick made in Holland. It is yellowish, very hard, and long and narrow in shape. -- Dutch clover (Bot.), common white clover (Trifolium repens), the seed of which was…

a soldier; to be on duty. With records sweet of duties done. Keble. To employ him on the hardest and most imperative duty. Hallam. Duty is a graver term than obligation. A duty hardly exists to do trivial things; but there may be an obligation to do them. C. J. Smith.

An inseparable prefix, fr. the Greek ill, bad, hard, difficult, and the like; cf. the prefixes, Skr. dus-, Goth. tuz-, OHG. zur-, G. zer-, AS. to-, Icel. tor-, Ir. do-.

Hard-hearted; sordid; gross. [Poetic] Lowell.

se away (Naut.), to slacken a rope gradually. -- To ease a ship (Naut.), to put the helm hard, or regulate the sail, to prevent pitching when closehauled. -- To ease the helm (Naut.), to put the helm more nearly amidships, to lessen the effect on the ship, or the strain on the wheel rope. Ham. Nav. Encyc.…

A piece of money coined in the east by Richard II. of England. Crabb.

A hard, black variety of vulcanite. It may be cut and polished, and is used for many small articles, as combs and buttons, and for insulating material in electric apparatus.

A hard, heavy, and durable wood, which admits of a fine polish or gloss. The usual color is black, but it also occurs red or green.

In addition; also; likewise. [Obs. or Archaic] 'T will be prodigious hard to prove That this is eke the throne of love. Prior. A trainband captain eke was he Of famous London town. Cowper.

of the elephant. [Obs.] Dryden. Elephant apple (Bot.), an East Indian fruit with a rough, hard rind, and edible pulp, borne by Feronia elephantum, a large tree related to the orange. -- Elephant bed (Geol.), at Brighton, England, abounding in fossil remains of elephants. Mantell. -- Elephant beetle (Zoöl.), any very…

A disease of the skin, in which it become enormously thickened, and is rough, hard, and fissured, like an elephant's hide.

State of being contained; inclosure. [Obs.] In the embracement of the parts hardly reparable, as bones. Bacon.

To harden. [Obs.] It will embrawn and iron-crust his flesh. Nash.