hardpan†

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

1n.

a compacted layer of hard soil, especially clay, lying beneath the subsoil.

Quotations

1887

The boulder clay is cemented together into a solid mass like concrete, and the well drillers call it hard pan.

1961

Stationmen excavating by hand cut of hardpan and boulders on Hudson Bay Railway, 1914.

2n.

any hard, cement-like ground.

1951

He unhooked his horses and pulled the Bloater to safety on a dry patch of hardpan road.

1954

Somewhere, in a patch of hardpan, they found the track of a hobnailed boot--a right foot with nine nails in it.

3n. — Fig.

rock bottom; lowest limit; the basic part or issue.

1871

We have decided to cut all "dead advertisements," and come down to "hard pan."

1886

If You Want to Purchase Fall Goods Away Down at Hard Pan Prices, go to Daniel J. Lynch's One Price Cash Store.

1889

When the sombre shades of poverty have entered his old shack, he has in the miner's phraseology, got down to bed rock or hard pan. . . .

1920

It took me just about ten minutes to get down to hard-pan, with him, once he was convinced I meant business.