"find out the hard way" meaning in English

See find out the hard way in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: finds out the hard way [present, singular, third-person], finding out the hard way [participle, present], found out the hard way [participle, past], found out the hard way [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|find<,,found> out the hard way|head=find out the hard way}} find out the hard way (third-person singular simple present finds out the hard way, present participle finding out the hard way, simple past and past participle found out the hard way)
  1. To acquire knowledge through failure or any other undesirable experience. Synonyms: learn the hard way
    Sense id: en-find_out_the_hard_way-en-verb-5F74TDoy Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for find out the hard way meaning in English (1.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "finds out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "finding out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "found out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "found out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "find<,,found> out the hard way",
        "head": "find out the hard way"
      },
      "expansion": "find out the hard way (third-person singular simple present finds out the hard way, present participle finding out the hard way, simple past and past participle found out the hard way)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I don't know how well seatbelts protect you, but I certainly don't want to find out the hard way, so I use them either way."
        },
        {
          "text": "You can't assume that someone else will call an ambulance. I learnt that the hard way after crashing my bike."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To acquire knowledge through failure or any other undesirable experience."
      ],
      "id": "en-find_out_the_hard_way-en-verb-5F74TDoy",
      "links": [
        [
          "acquire",
          "acquire"
        ],
        [
          "failure",
          "failure"
        ],
        [
          "experience",
          "experience"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "learn the hard way"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "find out the hard way"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "finds out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "finding out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "found out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "found out the hard way",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "find<,,found> out the hard way",
        "head": "find out the hard way"
      },
      "expansion": "find out the hard way (third-person singular simple present finds out the hard way, present participle finding out the hard way, simple past and past participle found out the hard way)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I don't know how well seatbelts protect you, but I certainly don't want to find out the hard way, so I use them either way."
        },
        {
          "text": "You can't assume that someone else will call an ambulance. I learnt that the hard way after crashing my bike."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To acquire knowledge through failure or any other undesirable experience."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "acquire",
          "acquire"
        ],
        [
          "failure",
          "failure"
        ],
        [
          "experience",
          "experience"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "learn the hard way"
    }
  ],
  "word": "find out the hard way"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.