Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. of alcohol or drugs.

2. (UK Und., also the hard) coins (as opposed to notes); cite c.1850 refers to passing counterfeit coins.

1830		J. Galt Lawrie Todd I Pt II 43: Four hundred and thirty-three dollars, which the old gentleman counted out to me in the hard.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 32 128/2: [G]entlemen engaged in the soft (forged notes), the hard (smashing), ramping, sneaking, doing a panny, making a reader, or picking up a cat and her kittens — the cat being a quart pot and the kittens pints!
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 6/1: They openly accused her of ‘copping the hard’ and leaving the ‘soft’ behind.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 296: Money itself has in the United States, as in England, probably more designations than any other object – liquor alone excepted [...] hardstuff, or hard.
1898		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 15 Nov. 5/3: The ‘hard’ is metal money.
1905		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 4 Feb. 5/6: Money in general is known as: The Actual, Coliander Seeds, [...] Hard, John Davis, King’s Pictures, [...] Nonsense, Oil of Angels, [...] Rowdy.
1919		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 7 June 9/6: Slang of Money [...] It has been called ‘the actual, the blunt, hard, dirt, evil, flimsy, gilt, iron, John. Davis, lurries, moss, oil of angels, pieces, rowdy, spondulicks, tin, wad’ .
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 116: I’d picked up a little over two dollars in hard.

3. (Und.) hard labour in prison.

1886		Reynolds’s Newspaper 2 May 6/6: [The] stockbroker has been sentenced to eightewen months ‘hard’ and will probably be broken himself on the wheel of the perpetual staircase.
1891		G.R. Sims ‘Pickpocket Poems’ Dagonet Ditties 91: Of two bioncs I robbed the bard, / For which I got three months with hard.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 11 Feb. 1/2: In fact, a few months ‘hard’ would’nt go amiss with such an ass.
1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Belinda to the Bench’, Sporting Times 13 Oct. 1/4: I can read it in your chevy, I can read it like a clock, / That for me you’ve got a moon or two, perhaps a ‘tray’ in stock. / What, a brace with ‘hard’?
1901		H. Lawson ‘Lord Douglas’ in Roderick (1972) 493: He got One-Eyed Bogan ‘three months’ hard’ for taking a bottle of whisky.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 350: Six years at ‘hard’.
1914		E. Dyson Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 32: That tough with [...] a ’ead of hair like six months’ ’ard?
1923		Truth (Wellington) 21 Apr. 6/6: Don’t let me see you again or you’ll get a month’s hard.
1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 45: The sentences [...] varied from seven days to fifteen years ‘hard’.
1930		‘Leslie Charteris’ Enter the Saint 29: Danny’s fees for a term of imprisonment were a flat rate of ten pounds a week, with an extra charge of two pounds a week for ‘hard.’.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 293: They give Y--- only six months hard.
1957		J. Braine Room at the Top (1959) 189: Oh my [...] Almost worth ten years hard, isn’t she?

4. an erection [underpinned by hard-on n. (1)].

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1893		‘Bob Sterling’ Town-Bull 19: A pego, that the thought of a new slit to raid, had lifted into a giant hard.
c.1935		‘The Love Guide’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 148: All I got to do is look at a picture of Tillie and I can get up a hard.
1959		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 206: One night, returning from a spree, / His customary hard had he, / And on the street he chanced to meet / This harlot of Jerusalem.
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 134: This old way you got a tippin’ through these alleys and backyards, / and when you get home to your money-woman, boy, I bet you can’t raise a hard.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 38: Taking off some drunk chasing his hard around.
1982		J. Atkins Sex In Lit. 4 188: This [i.e. putting on a condom] took so much time and looked so repulsive that he lost his hard.
1992		A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 152: A sheila came in [...] A real looker. Enough to give a horny dude like Jube a hard on the spot.
2000		Indep. Rev. 13 June 7: I want more. I wanna yard of hard, and I want it now.

5. a thug, a hoodlum [hard case n. (2)].

1963		Gosling in New Society 18 Apr. n.p.: The hard, the teddy-boy.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 34: Just you try and batter him and you’ll have about ten of his hards on you.

6. (US) an aggressive posture.

2012

T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 9: Then he grinned, his hard and cool back in place.