hard-tack
[f. hard a. + tack n. in fig. application: cf. hard fare.]
Ship-biscuit; hence, ordinary sea fare in general. Also, hard bread or biscuits generally. Also fig. and attrib.
| 1836 Knickerbocker VIII. 203 When I was the size of that monkey there, who knows how to do nothing but gnaw hard tack. 1841 Lever C. O'Malley lxxxviii. (Farmer), No more hard-tack..no salt butter, but a genuine land breakfast. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxvi. (1856) 326 Another set of fellows adhered pertinaciously to their salt junk and hard tack. 1869 Mayne Reid's Mag. June 513. 1888 Century Mag. XXXVI. 614/1 A little rabbit that kept..nibbling at our bread and hard⁓tack. 1899 T. Hall Tales 108 A meal of raw bacon, hard⁓tack and cold water. 1909 Daily Chron. 8 July 9/2 Of all the hard-tack breads..I have found..the small ringed bread of Siberia the most substantial. 1931 Economist 5 Dec. 105/1 It has paved the way..for the real hard⁓tack committee work on the thousand practical problems of the constitution builder. 1955 W. Foster-Harris Look of Old West ii. 56 Hardtack..was hard, unleavened bread, baked in cakes..about 3 inches square, decorated with what looked like nail punctures. 1960 Economist 15 Oct. 219/1 Some of those who raised left-wing political rather than hard-tack organisational questions being shouted down by genuine party workers. |