0 the quality of being difficult to bend, cut, or break:
These alloys are characterized by their extreme hardness.
Most international golf players own 40 or 50 different balls of varying hardness, weight, and bounciness.
1 the quality of needing or using a lot of physical or mental effort:
They were worn out by the hardness of the work and the heat of the sun.
Officers are expert in rooting out recruits who do not have the physical or mental hardness to survive battle conditions.
The hardness of his life stemmed from the chronic poverty into which he was born.
There was warmth and repose enough there to set against the hardness of the day's demands.
2 the fact of being unpleasant or not at all gentle:
3 (of water) the fact of containing a high level of minerals that prevent soap from making bubbles:
4 the quality of being firm and solid, or not easy to bend, cut, or break:
These materials are characterized by their extreme hardness.
However, with decreasing temperature cadmium and zinc induced similar effects at many concentrations and water hardnesses.
In addition, the volume also attests to an intellectual ambition and hardness of thought which critics couldn't acknowledge or didn't see.
Hosts arranged in order of increasing specific gravity and hardness (see table 4).
The breadth of these spheres is a function of the strength of the norm and its hardness.
Several traits were investigated, including test weight, protein content, flour yield, kernel hardness and several mixograph parameters.
The results suggest that pigmentation in the coronary region is associated with reduced initial development of hardness.
The major conclusion is that, for a given site, water concentration does influence, and is negatively related to, hardness.
The sensitivity of the optical tactile sensor can be adjusted by texture morphology and hardness of the sheet.
