Etymograph

English

hard

Hard comes from Old English heard ‘hard, harsh, austere, severe, rigorous, stern,…’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *harduz.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*harduz1reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*hard(ī)1reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150heard1‘hard’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500hard1
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588hard1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English hard
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “The King your brother is now hard at hand,…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*harduzWiktionary, English hardreconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*hard(ī)Wiktionary, English hardreconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150heardWiktionary, English hard‘hard’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500hardWiktionary, English hard
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588hardWiktionary, English hard. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “The King your brother is now hard at hand,…”

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with hard, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-Indo-European *kret- ‘strong, powerful’

  • rather ← hraþor ← hraþe ← *hraþē ← *hradō
  • bureaucracy ← bureaucratie ← κρᾰ́τος ← *krét-os
  • bureaucratic ← bureaucratique ← bureaucratie ← κρᾰ́τος ← *krét-os
  • aristocracy ← aristocratie ← aristocratia ← ἀριστοκρατίᾱ ← ἄριστος
  • bureaucrat ← bureaucrate ← bureaucratie ← κρᾰ́τος ← *krét-os

45 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

adj Solid and firm.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “hard”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *harduz / hard