hardback
(ˈhɑːdbæk)
1. a. Name in West Indies of a coleopterous insect.
| 1750 G. Hughes Barbadoes 82 The Hardback. This fly is about half an inch long..Its membranaceous wings are defended with sheaths or shell-wings. 1958 J. Carew Wild Coast ii. 22 Hector..watched a hardback beetle crawling up the wall... ‘Boy, if you kill all the hardbacks that come in here you will make a mess of my clean floor.’ 1959 P. Capon Amongst those Missing 66 The insects..whirred and buzzed..and the noise made by the hardbacks..kept Harry's nerves on the stretch. |
b. Name of a river fish of Central America.
| 1883 J. G. Wood in Sunday Mag. Nov. 676/2 Many of these rivers are inhabited by a fish (Callichthys) popularly called the Hassar or Hardback. |
2. A book bound in stiff boards; cf. paperbacked). Also attrib. So hard-backed a. (see also hard a. 22).
| 1954 New Republic 26 Apr. 18 (heading) New novels: hardbacks or paperbacks. 1957 Harper's Mag. Sept. 94/3 Is it not possible that he may come away reading nothing but paperback books, that he will have become attuned to never spending $4.50 on a hardback? 1958 Economist 8 Nov. Suppl. 1/1 The retailer's margin on paperbacks is just as profitable as on hardbacks... A hardback order may well be topped up with a couple of ‘quality paperbacks’. 1959 Times 24 Nov. 6/4 Most ‘respectable’ American publishers respect the British publisher's hardbacked and paperbacked book rights. 1960 Times 3 Feb. 17/4 The big paperback publishers are not hardback publishers but specialists in what is virtually a new genre. 1970 G. Greer Female Eunuch 170 Love affairs whether in cheap ‘romance’ comic⁓papers or in hard-back novels. |