Recently, I've come across these two expressions with the unusual usage of the adjective hard:
We've reached a hard date.
You have a hard stop on what you can access.
In this context, I guess, it has a similar meaning to closing date or deadline, and hard itself means nonnegotiable.
From the Cambridge Dictionary
hard adjective (CLEAR)
[ before noun ] able to be proved:
hard facts/evidence
I looked up the two phrases in COCA and found out that they're both very, very rarely used.
So, do this sentences sound fine to you, or is there a more natural way to convey a similar meaning?
Best Answer
Both expressions appear to be used in business. The Ridiculous Business Jargon Dictionary: H-words defines "hard stop" as:
While I have not been able to find a definition for "hard date", it pretty clearly means a date or deadline for something that cannot be delayed. It often is contrasted with "soft date", which is its opposite. Here is an example of the phrase in use.
I think the corresponding definition of "hard" used here is this one from the OED: