A: You’ve been in the job for two weeks now. How do you like your new boss?

B: He seems so hard-nosed that I’m afraid to say hello to him.

A: Howe is known to be hard-nosed, but he can really be friendly if you get to know him.

Note: This term means “realistic and determined, tough-minded.” It is formed by putting “hard” and “nose” together. Earlier, it refers to bullets or shells with hard tips, or dogs that have difficulty following a scent. It’s not in common use before the 1950s, when it began to be applied to tough or relentless characters generally. “Soft-nosed” seems to have been used only of bullets.