hard time

hard time (countable and uncountable, plural hard times)

1. (colloquial, countable) Difficulties; a difficult time; trouble.

   They had a hard time putting the self-assembly furniture together without a manual.

   • 2011, Mark Lavorato, Believing Cedric:

     The day passed without further incident. As did the next. And then the next. Until, eventually, Agnes began to have a hard time believing that anything strange had ever happened at all.

2. (colloquial, uncountable) A prison term.

   Jack got hard time for his part in the robbery.

• give someone a hard time
• hard-times token

• Jonathon Green (2024) “hard time n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

• admireth