How to Use hard knocks in a Sentence

hard knocks

plural noun

• Kids need a few hard knocks on the way.
  — Amy Lawrence, New York Times, 14 Aug. 2025
• As the saying goes, the school of hard knocks is the best way to learn.
  — Serenity Gibbons, Forbes, 24 Jan. 2023
• The school of hard knocks was the only resort left.
  — Shivaram Rajgopal, Forbes.com, 6 Sep. 2025
• Shaver was a survivor, though, in spite of the hard knocks and his hell-raising ways.
  — Mary Colurso | [email protected], al, 28 Oct. 2020
• Is this your sincere suggestion in a world of hard knocks?
  — Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 22 May 2026
• Every Indian founder goes through more than a fair share of hard knocks.
  — Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Quartz India, 2 Aug. 2019
• As a child, the school Collier most remembers is the one of hard knocks.
  — Pam Kragen, sandiegouniontribune.com, 18 May 2018
• Olson didn't mind taking a few hard knocks himself, either, if that sent the message through.
  — Bruce Pascoe, azcentral, 12 Apr. 2018
• Again, though, the best college football stories pancake hardship and hard knocks.
  — San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Sep. 2021
• For the struggling restaurant industry, the hard knocks keep coming.
  — Marcy De Luna, Houston Chronicle, 24 June 2020
• In this new book, Greg Heffley is finding out that the road to fame and glory comes with some hard knocks.
  — Kirby Adams, The Courier-Journal, 20 Oct. 2022
• Bosa often sounded excited to be enrolled in Williams’ school of hard knocks.
  — Eric Branch, SFChronicle.com, 20 Aug. 2020
• Then came Carolina and two more seasons of frustration and hard knocks.
  — Jerry McDonald, Mercury News, 5 Feb. 2026
• Your poker education is usually going to be a school of hard knocks.
  — Chuck Blount, San Antonio Express-News, 12 Feb. 2018
• News cycles this year have been a relentless parade of hard knocks, and April has been no exception.
  — Elizabeth Shackelford, Chicago Tribune, 17 Apr. 2026
• Again Choinière, who endured a few hard knocks in the first half, struck a terrific pass for his second assist of the evening.
  — Josh Gross, Daily News, 8 Apr. 2026
• Although my hard knocks were real and there wasn’t a Daddy Warbucks in my future.
  — Liz Elting, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2021
• The thrill of playing alongside girls and women just like them, who reveled in the sweat and hard knocks of an all-out training session, was enough.
  — Liz Clarke, courant.com, 3 June 2019
• In Atlanta on Tuesday, Murray might as well have been studying at the school of hard knocks.
  — Jeff McDonald, ExpressNews.com, 6 Nov. 2019
• Outlast’s participants, by contrast, felt more like graduates of the school of hard knocks.
  — Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 9 Mar. 2023
• And Kelly isn’t trying to escape Saban’s coaching school of hard knocks.
  — Andrew Astleford, ajc, 20 Sep. 2017
• Neither, for that matter, were the hard knocks and life experience that inform the best country music.
  — Tom Roland, Billboard, 16 Mar. 2018
• For a leader familiar with the hard knocks of politics, Whitman has been unafraid to flip-flop.
  — Jen Wieczner, Fortune, 22 Sep. 2017
• Raised in Cumberland, Maine, the 21-year-old college student has spent time in the school of hard knocks.
  — Lars Brandle, Billboard, 25 Mar. 2024
• Whether the pitchers are going through the customary developmental hard knocks or if these starters will become busts will not be known for a few years.
  — New York Times, 15 July 2022
• Time will tell whether a future article will describe Warsh learning his own behavioral economics lessons at the school of hard knocks.
  — Hersh Shefrin, Forbes.com, 23 June 2026
• Continuing the story, Stallworth gets to the moment when the intruder’s actions were paused by hard knocks on the door.
  — Scott Talley, Freep.com, 17 Sep. 2021
• The movie is an ode to all the guys—and, ostensibly, women, though there are no obvious stuntwomen in the film—who take hard knocks to make stuff look real on film.
  — Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 1 May 2024
• Marion said his team will continue to back Williams with a bye week coming for everyone, to reassess and regroup in a sport big on hard knocks and bounce backs.
  — Joe Davidson, Sacbee.com, 28 Sep. 2025
• That might have all been surmountable — the team is used to hard knocks, a fickle crowd and endless friendly jabs from the competition — had the noise stayed outside the locker room.
  — Jamie Tarabay, New York Times, 17 Sep. 2019