hard mode

Definitions

1. 1

   A game mode with a higher difficulty than the standard gameplay.

   • If you’re playing on hard mode, be warned that zombies can break down wooden doors.
2. 2

   A task or situation made deliberately more difficult than usual, often as a test of skill…

   A task or situation made deliberately more difficult than usual, often as a test of skill or endurance.

   • But just when I thought I’d gotten the hang of things, a snake chased me into a deeper level of the labyrinth! Everything’s on hard mode down here.
   • I moved across the country twice the year I finished my dissertation because I like to live on hard mode, apparently.
   • Easy mode: draw the recipe you found. Hard mode: Make the recipe and write about the experience making it.
3. 3

   Used other than figuratively or idiomatically

   Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hard, mode.

   • Notwithſtanding this melancholy and hard mode of living, they are ſeldom or ever ſick, and all arrive at extreme old age.
   • A hard mode in the form of a written document is often referred to as a “hard copy.”
   • Since you are working on a target mode of giving—an unfamiliar or a hard mode—you will find this formula especially useful.

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