Synonyms of hardheaded

hardheaded

adjective

ˈhärd-ˈhe-dəd 

1

as in smart

having or showing a practical cleverness or judgment

a hardheaded politician who never hesitated to set aside principle in favor of expediency

Synonyms & Similar Words

• smart
• shrewd
• astute
• savvy
• wise
• intelligent
• sharp
• veteran
• knowing
• experienced
• clear-eyed
• clever
• clear-sighted
• brilliant
• cunning
• canny
• keen
• heady
• sharp-witted
• hard-boiled
• bright
• quick
• wily
• slick
• perceptive
• sagacious
• perspicacious
• cagey
• insightful
• crafty
• subtle
• tricky
• sly
• artful
• foxy
• resourceful
• devious
• discerning
• sage
• cagy
• guileful
• brainy
• discriminating
• sapient
• pawky
• percipient
• nimble
• agile
• discriminative
• ingenious
• dodgy
• apt
• calculating
• quick-witted
• alert
• scheming
• sharp-sighted
• sharp-eyed

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• naive
• naïve
• ingenuous
• guileless
• innocent
• artless
• gullible
• unknowing
• unwise
• exploitable
• stupid
• dumb
• obtuse
• dense
• unperceptive
• slow
• simple
• foolish
• thickheaded
• dopey
• dull
• unintelligent
• feebleminded
• idiotic
• silly
• thoughtless
• ignorant
• brainless
• brain-dead
• gullable
• weak-minded
• uninformed
• moronic
• imbecile
• imbecilic
• witless
• softheaded
• knuckleheaded
• slow-witted
• dim-witted
• lamebrained
• airheaded
• gormless
• lunkheaded
• lamebrain
• empty-headed
• dopy
• thick-witted
• half-witted
• birdbrained
• idiotical

2

as in stubborn

sticking to an opinion, purpose, or course of action in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion

Granny remained hardheaded about keeping her house and not moving into a nursing home

Synonyms & Similar Words

• stubborn
• adamant
• hardened
• steadfast
• bullheaded
• obstinate
• headstrong
• intransigent
• opinionated
• wilful
• willful
• obdurate
• uncompromising
• unbending
• mulish
• implacable
• pigheaded
• obsessive
• unyielding
• hard-nosed
• inflexible
• hard
• dogged
• unrelenting
• immovable
• pertinacious
• pat
• determined
• adamantine
• ossified
• persistent
• perverse
• strict
• self-willed
• stiff-necked
• relentless
• self-opinionated
• inconvincible
• deaf to reason
• tenacious
• wrongheaded
• unflinching
• iron
• stern
• rigid
• defiant
• resolved
• wayward
• hard-line
• cantankerous
• severe
• inexorable
• narrow-minded
• hidebound
• single-minded
• recalcitrant
• uncooperative
• firm
• intractable
• disobedient
• stouthearted
• anal-retentive
• hard-shell
• indomitable
• insubordinate
• bloody-minded
• contumacious
• invincible
• refractory
• mutinous
• unmanageable
• contrary
• hard-shelled
• cussed
• unruly
• unconquerable
• insurgent
• hell-bent
• inveterate
• ungovernable
• set
• confirmed
• demanding
• exacting
• unregenerate
• froward

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• flexible
• amenable
• agreeable
• acquiescent
• obedient
• pliable
• pliant
• compliant
• docile
• submissive
• complying
• tractable
• willing
• yielding
• receptive
• responsive
• reasonable
• accepting
• manageable
• relenting
• placable
• temperate
• persuadable
• subservient
• slavish
• governable

3

as in pragmatic

willing to see things as they really are and deal with them sensibly

a hardheaded minister who understands the difficulties teenagers face today

Synonyms & Similar Words

• pragmatic
• pragmatical
• realistic
• practical
• sensible
• matter-of-fact
• cynical
• down-to-earth
• rational
• earthy
• reasonable
• logical
• grounded
• sound
• utilitarian
• sober
• levelheaded
• skeptical
• sane
• disillusioned
• unsentimental
• pessimistic
• unromantic
• tough-minded
• commonsensical
• hard
• no-nonsense
• bottom-line
• distrustful
• misanthropic
• mistrustful
• hard-edged
• philistine
• suspicious
• idealless
• hard-boiled
• sobersided

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• idealistic
• impractical
• unrealistic
• visionary
• imaginative
• utopian
• blue-sky
• romantic
• optimistic
• sentimental
• fanciful
• fantastical
• cheerful
• fantastic
• unreasonable
• theoretical
• irrational
• trusting
• illogical
• insane
• theoretic
• trustful
• rose-colored
• unsuspicious
• half-baked

Examples of hardheaded in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But behind the display of friendship was a backdrop of hardheaded geopolitics. —Anton Troianovski, New York Times, 20 Mar. 2023

Politicians like John Adams and Theodore Roosevelt, and hardheaded businessmen like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, supported Zionist aspirations as well. —Walter Russell Mead, WSJ, 5 Sep. 2022

What does matter is to stop being so hardheaded and close-minded. —San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 July 2022

Haidt believes that conditions are too dire to take the hardheaded, no-reasonable-doubt view. —The New Yorker, 3 June 2022