How to Use hard-earned in a Sentence

hard-earned

adjective
  • Of course, that trust was hard-earned.
    — Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 19 May 2026
  • And every breath is hard-earned.
    — Nichole Marks, CBS News, 5 Apr. 2026
  • The grit and gusto that Groff brought to the cast album was hard-earned.
    — Joe Lynch, Billboard, 16 Sep. 2025
  • This year, the warm weather, longer days, and good vibes feel especially hard-earned.
    — InStyle, 7 June 2026
  • Stenhouse knows well the chaos at Daytona, where momentum is hard-earned and even harder to keep.
    — Edgar Thompson, The Orlando Sentinel, 7 Feb. 2026
  • The unique energy coming off Dickinson in the role seems to have been hard-earned — a result of his years spent tying the knots of his own masculinity and then eventually untangling them.
    — Carrie Battan, Vulture, 6 Oct. 2025
  • Founded in 2004, jkROCK began its journey under humble and hard-earned circumstances.
    — Jason Phillips, USA Today, 12 Aug. 2025
  • This positive experience was hard-earned after some rough years early in his career surrounding his rise to teen heartthrob fame with shows like One Tree Hill and Gilmore Girls.
    — H. Alan Scott jennifer Cunningham, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hard-earned.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: