hard to swallow

hard to swallow

Hard to believe or accept. The cost of childcare can be hard to swallow, but it's a necessary expense, unfortunately. We all found his story about finding $1,000 in a field rather hard to swallow.
See also: hard, swallow
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

hard to swallow

mod. difficult to believe. Your story is pretty hard to swallow, but I am beginning to believe it.
See also: hard, swallow
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • hard to come by
  • in the end
  • be hard at it
  • come by
  • honestly
  • not any hard feelings
  • hard by
  • knock (oneself) out
  • knock oneself out
  • knock out
References in classic literature
She went very slowly across the room, for pride was hard to swallow, and stood by him, but he did not turn his head.
Newman said to himself that her daughter had been announcing her engagement and that the old lady found the morsel hard to swallow. But Madame de Cintre, as she gave him her hand gave him also a look by which she appeared to mean that he should understand something.
She tried very hard to swallow something that was not there.
GORDON Ramsay has a reputation for being foul-mouthed - but even he found a bushtucker-style trial hard to swallow.
Williamson, who was adjudged Player of the Tournament, said the loss against England during the final based on the boundary countback rule was pretty hard to swallow.
This position is hard to swallow for me in light of the more than 60 million human lives ended since the Supreme Court's ruling of Roe V.
HARD TO SWALLOW Staff at Mexican diner in LA saw through Gordon's disguise
Although whatever he said was true but it was hard to swallow for many extremist Indians.
Sitting out this one is going to be hard to swallow because I miss the chance to play against my former Tranmere team-mate Ben Chorley,
However, the teams that have reached cup finals and even won cups makes it doubly hard to swallow when you look at the way he has been scared to field decent teams on the orders of the club.
A burger sandwich at BD4.500 is hard to swallow! Food is not allowed from outside and I don't think many people can afford the visit at this rate.
"While some tough decisions might be a little hard to swallow now," said Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm.
As a lifelong Labour supporter I find this very hard to swallow.
Sweetie fans might find it hard to swallow...but Maltesers are getting a new shape.
I KNOW it's hard to swallow your pride when over 420 British servicemen and women have sacrificed their lives for the sake of I'm not sure what, but when is the government going to realise that the Taliban will never ever be beaten.