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Drive a hard bargain

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

To negotiate firmly and without compromise; to insist on favorable terms in a deal or agreement.

Detailed Definition
This commercial idiom celebrates—or critiques—the ruthless effectiveness of the determined negotiator. In poetry, it appears in works exploring power dynamics, class relations, and the human tendency to treat relationships as transactions. Poets invoke it to examine marriage, labor contracts, colonial negotiations, and artistic compromise—anywhere that value is disputed and leverage exercised. Its double valence—admiring toughness while questioning what is lost in purely transactional exchange—makes it productive in lyric poetry. The phrase also invites reflection on what we bargain with: time, dignity, integrity, or love—and whether any deal is truly hard enough to justify what we surrender in the making of it.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about labor negotiation might use drive a hard bargain to honor the union organizer whose refusal to accept the first offer forced management to take worker interests seriously; In a love poem, to drive a hard bargain describes the emotional terms two people negotiate — what each will give, what each requires, the bargain struck between their different needs; The commercial origin of the phrase suits satirical poems about relationships treated as transactions — the speaker who approaches love as a negotiation, calculating leverage and acceptable terms with the precision of a merchant; A poem about artistic compromise might describe the speaker's refusal to drive a hard bargain — the acceptance of inadequate terms that retrospect reveals as a failure of self-respect; In a political poem about treaty negotiation, to drive a hard bargain is the diplomat's essential function — and the poem might explore what is lost in negotiations where one party cannot afford to hold firm regardless of what the terms are; The phrase suits poems about the ethics of exchange, asking what it means to drive a hard bargain in relationships that should perhaps not be organized by the logic of negotiation at all
Additional Notes
This phrase presents negotiation as toughness and control. In poetry, it can characterise merchants, parents, politicians, lovers, or even Death as a severe bargainer. The idiom is useful where desire meets price. Related images include markets, scales, contracts, clenched hands, and the moral question of what must be surrendered to obtain what one wants.
Also Known As
Drive a tough bargain Hard negotiator
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