How to Use hard-pressed in a Sentence

hard-pressed

adjective
  • The Beavers will be hard-pressed to reach that level of success.
    Jon Wilner, The Mercury News, 1 Mar. 2024
  • In the Lions’ den at Ford Field, Williams will be hard-pressed to find running room.
    Bill Reinhard, New York Daily News, 11 Jan. 2024
  • Miners have already invested in their equipment and would be hard-pressed to throw it all away, for one.
    Justine Calma, The Verge, 11 July 2023
  • Indeed, Justice Thomas would have been hard-pressed to get a loan from a traditional lender.
    Julie Tate, New York Times, 5 Aug. 2023
  • The Lionesses will be hard-pressed to beat the French, who finally found their form in a 6-1 dissection of China.
    John Powers, BostonGlobe.com, 5 Aug. 2023
  • Absent outside help, first-time buyers are often hard-pressed to put 20% down.
    Aldo Svaldi, The Denver Post, 5 May 2024
  • But young renters would be hard-pressed to find a market that isn’t rapidly outpacing their paycheck.
    Jane Thier, Fortune, 29 Mar. 2024
  • But the Tiffany network will be hard-pressed to be the driver of significant growth for the entire company.
    Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 18 Jan. 2024
  • Whoever gets the job will be hard-pressed to turn around an economy that’s collapsed in recent years.
    Dana Khraiche, Bloomberg.com, 5 June 2023
  • Even if everything breaks perfectly for Schilling, a former Grand Canyon assistant, the Waves will be hard-pressed to crack the top five.
    Jon Wilner, The Mercury News, 27 June 2024
  • Many borrowers could be hard-pressed to get new funding for those properties.
    Steve Brown, Dallas News, 8 June 2023
  • But most of the candidates, as reported by Politico, would be hard-pressed to make it past Harris if Biden steps down or is replaced.
    Ross O'Keefe, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 1 July 2024
  • Had the Pac-12 remained intact, Cal and Stanford would be hard-pressed to compete in the emerging environment.
    Jon Wilner, The Mercury News, 9 Aug. 2024
  • Someone from Mexico City or Madrid sitting at the next table could be hard-pressed to follow their rare dialect.
    Simon Romero Desiree Rios, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2023
  • But with stock in AMC having come back down to earth in value, the exhibition giant has been hard-pressed to keep raising fresh cash to run its business.
    Etan Vlessing, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 July 2023
  • But with stock in AMC having come back down to earth in value, the exhibition giant had been hard-pressed to keep raising fresh cash to run its business.
    Etan Vlessing, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Aug. 2023
  • First, the company will be hard-pressed to match Amazon's convenience of overnight or same-day delivery with its Prime service.
    Drew Bernstein, Forbes, 15 Feb. 2024
  • Other nocturnal creatures can also hear very well, and an owl whose feathers were rustling in flight would be hard-pressed to get close to its vigilant prey.
    Michael B. Habib, Scientific American, 16 Apr. 2024
  • At a time when the average American would be hard-pressed to name a single Rock Hudson film, is this what audiences really need to know about the star?
    Peter Debruge, Variety, 11 June 2023
  • Foster will be hard-pressed not to improve on Kelly’s recent recruiting record.
    Mirjam Swanson, Orange County Register, 12 Feb. 2024
  • Indeed, our team was hard-pressed to find many differences in audio quality between the Turtlebox 2 and the other top scorers in this year’s test.
    Will Palmer, Outside Online, 28 June 2024
  • All signs are pointing up as loving Venus enters your 10th House of Honor, giving you an extra special shine that others will be hard-pressed to miss.
    Tarot.com, Baltimore Sun, 11 Mar. 2024
  • The idea also acknowledges that each county’s sheriff’s office is hard-pressed to report jail releases to the DMV because of the sheer volume.
    oregonlive, 22 Feb. 2023
  • Plus, any animal lover will be hard-pressed not to shed a tear or two upon seeing an imperiled pup come to be lovingly embraced.
    Thomas Floyd, Washington Post, 13 Mar. 2024
  • As for aesthetics, even a diehard enthusiast of the Raging Bull would be hard-pressed to spot the stylistic difference between the latest S and the original Urus.
    Jeremy Taylor, Robb Report, 11 June 2023
  • The 45-day measure to keep the government open dropped additional military aid to Ukraine, and supporters of such aid will be hard-pressed to resume the flow through the next spending measures.
    Jonathan Weisman, New York Times, 6 Oct. 2023
  • Any judge who encounters him in court––in New York or beyond––will be hard-pressed to prevent the former President from issuing threats of violence.
    David Remnick, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2023
  • If the court rules against the debt relief plan in its current form, the administration will be hard-pressed to revive it before the Covid-19 national emergency is scheduled to end in May.
    Matt Ford, The New Republic, 28 Feb. 2023
  • Clubs are hard-pressed to advertise lineups without the protographers shooting in the trenches.
    Julie Seabaugh, Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2023
  • Michigan schools might be particularly hard-pressed to find funding to keep buildings from falling apart.
    Detroit Free Press, 27 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hard-pressed.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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