hard hat

¹

noun

1. a protective helmet of metal or plastic, especially as worn by construction or factory workers.
2. a uniformed soldier of a regular army, as opposed to a guerrilla.

hard-hat

²

or hard·hat

[ hahrd-hat ]

noun

, Informal.

1. a construction worker, especially a member of a construction workers' union.
2. a working-class conservative.

adjective

1. pertaining to or characteristic of hard-hats:

   enlisting hard-hat support for his policies.

hard hat

noun

1. a hat made of a hard material for protection, worn esp by construction workers, equestrians, etc
2. informal.
   a construction worker

adjective

1. informal.
   characteristic of the presumed conservative attitudes and prejudices typified by construction workers

Word History and Origins

Origin of hard hat¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Origin of hard hat²

First recorded in 1960–65

Idioms and Phrases

A working-class ultraconservative. For example, They were counting on a large number of votes from the hard hats . This term alludes to the rigid protective headgear worn by construction workers, who were noted for their conservatism during the tumultuous 1960s. [c. 1960]

Example Sentences

Suddenly, men and women who’d toiled in humid fields, pulling the suckers from tobacco—who’d grown up reading by the light of kerosene lamps – could trade in their tobacco pegs for hard hats.

From Time

The technicians on deck, clad in hard hats and clipped into harnesses, reeled the cable in.

From MIT Technology Review

At a site visit last month, as rockfall tumbled down into a ditch on the uphill side of the road, park officials wearing hard hats described their maintenance crews’ intense efforts to keep traffic moving before the closure.

From Washington Post

Inside the school, about a dozen men in hard hats worked on the hallway and courtyard.

From Washington Post

The system uses a GoPro camera mounted on top of a hard hat.

From MIT Technology Review

The hard hat was to protect him should the parents swoop low.

From The Daily Beast

“Hard hat…heavy jacket…welding gloves…fish landing net…a sheet…a big Tupperware bin with a lid,” he says.

From The Daily Beast

Buy a hard hat and brush up on your rules for workplace safety.

From The Daily Beast

The difference is that everyone who wants to build in California has to follow the same rules and wear the hard hat.

From The Daily Beast

If you don't believe me, walk by a construction site in Manhattan and ask the guy in the hard hat.

From The Daily Beast

Of hair, indeed, Mr. Chifney could only boast a rim of carroty-gray stubble under the rim of the back of his hard hat.

From Project Gutenberg

As you value your comfort, dear reader, never purchase a hard hat.

From Project Gutenberg

He wore his city hard hat as if he wished by his headgear to distinguish himself from the herd of woodsmen whom he bossed.

From Project Gutenberg

And the little bow-legged one, with the hard hat two sizes too big, was Hen Tomlins who always went shopping with his wife.

From Project Gutenberg

A short man entered; he had big shoulders and remarkable girth of chest, and he carried a black, hard hat in his hand.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• helmet