hard put, be

hard put, be idiom
Find something very difficult, as in The show was so bad that I was hard put to conceal my dismay, or Manufacturers will be hard put to meet the new standards. [c. 1700]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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