the hard way

the hard way

1. Personal experience that is difficult, painful, or unpleasant, especially as teaches or strengthens someone. Starting your own business is really tough. I had to learn that the hard way.
2. The most challenging or difficult means (of doing something). He insists on doing his taxes by hand every year, rather than hiring an accountant or using software to make it easier—he always has to do things the hard way.
See also: hard, way
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

hard way, the

By bad or difficult experiences; also, by one's own efforts. For example, Bill found out the hard way that interest on his credit-card debt can mount up fast, or No one can teach you how-you'll just have to learn it the hard way. This expression comes from shooting craps (a dice game), where it refers to making an even-numbered point such as six by throwing doubles (two three's). Since there are more unmatching combinations that can produce the same number (four and two, five and one), the odds against throwing doubles are higher, hence the difficulty. [Early 1900s]
See also: hard
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

the hard way

through suffering or learning from the unpleasant consequences of mistakes.
1996 Nozipo Maraire Zenzele I think she understands better than the rest of us that we are at heart one family, for she has had to learn the hard way.
See also: hard, way
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

the hard way

The most difficult method or path. This term comes from the game of craps, where it means making two dice come up with a pair of equal numbers totaling the point. For example, if eight is the point to be made, the hard way calls for rolling two fours; neither five-three nor six-two will do. Since the chances of rolling two fours are much less than the other combinations, this way is “hard.” The term then was extended to such phrases as “learn something the hard way,” meaning to learn through bitter experience, and “come up the hard way,” meaning to rise by one’s own efforts.
See also: hard, way
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • hard way, the
  • learn (something) the hard way
  • learn the hard way
  • find (something) out the hard way
  • like pulling teeth
  • Let every man skin his own skunk.
  • knives
  • get (one's)/the knife into (someone)
  • get the knife into someone
  • get your knife into somebody
References in classic literature
The dullest head among them knew, that night, that the hard ways of poverty would be all the harder to walk on, now he was gone.
No Name
We had a moment of exquisite forgetfulness of the hard ways of life--a moment of delicious absorption in each other.
Law and the Lady
In these thirty words, Robinson alerts us to several essential qualities of his writing: his embededness in a specific place, Roundstone Bog; his admission that these are explorations, not conclusions; and crucially, his willingness to take the hard way, or several hard ways, to get to his point.
At one with the Earth
Brook then began publishing on the front page the initials T.H.W.T.B., which stood for "The Hard Way's The Best."
"The Hard Way" is the perfect antidote for those who dream of dropping out of the urban rat race and then of publishing a paper in Podunk and living happily ever after.
The Hard Way: The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor
The Hard Way: The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor.
The Hard Way: The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor
The lessons I learned in life, the hard ways and the capacity to seek someone who has...
Duterte, CBCP head hold dialogue today
"the lessons I learned in life, the hard ways" and "your capacity to seek someone who has somewhere a universal mind."
Duterte confesses: I stopped as Catholic after priests' abuse
Reacting against the hard ways of the Brute, Arthur doted on Alec--"the son of my soul," he called him--and when Alec was kicked out of boarding school for homosexual activity, Arthur was crestfallen but stood by his boy.
The Waugh at home