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Discover LudwigThe phrase "a hard number" is correct and usable in written English.
It is typically used to refer to a specific, concrete figure or statistic that is reliable and can be verified.
Example: "The sales report showed a hard number of 1,000 units sold last quarter, which exceeded our expectations."
Alternatives: "a concrete figure" or "a definitive statistic".
Exact(55)
"Two hundred is a hard number," he said.
"And it's already a hard number.
"Three is a very dangerous number, a hard number to come to a decision.
That's not that much, is it?" Perhaps not, but it's still a hard number to reach.
"We don't have a hard number, but it's billions," Mr. Jordan said.
With trillions invested during this time period, that's a hard number to reconcile.
Similar(5)
A harder number for prospective buyers will be the price.
To be sure, there was a hard-numbers aspect to the initial explosion of youth-targeted advertising in the 1960's and early 70's.
In November 2001 Roberts had recommended printing toll-free customer hotline numbers on soda cups and sending mystery shoppers to restaurants to conduct anonymous reviews of service using a hard-number scoring system.
This is wishful thinking, more a political forecast than a hard-numbers analysis.
Offering a point estimate — a single hard number — feigns a degree of accuracy that does not match real-world uncertainties.
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Justyna Jupowicz-Kozak
CEO of Professional Science Editing for Scientists @ prosciediting.com