How to Use hard-and-fast in a Sentence

hard-and-fast

adjective
  • But the truth is that 30 percent ceiling isn’t a hard-and-fast rule.
    Michelle Singletary, Washington Post, 13 Sep. 2023
  • There are no hard-and-fast rules about how much to tip anywhere, of course.
    Emily Heil, Washington Post, 9 Nov. 2023
  • There are hard-and-fast rules—and then there's common courtesy.
    Bobby Laurie, Condé Nast Traveler, 17 July 2023
  • But sticking within a color scheme is no hard-and-fast rule.
    Sacramento Bee, 30 Jan. 2024
  • As for tipping, concierges say there really is no hard-and-fast rule.
    Jennifer Bradley Franklin, Travel + Leisure, 4 Aug. 2023
  • The only hard-and-fast rule is that the audience is not permitted inside the fight.
    Joshua Needelman, Curbed, 1 Nov. 2023
  • There are no hard-and-fast recommendations for how much colostrum to take.
    Isabel Vasquez Rd Ldn, Health, 2 July 2024
  • But remember, there are no hard-and-fast rules on deer behavior.
    Alex Robinson, Outdoor Life, 26 Aug. 2022
  • About the age guidelines Our kids thought that the age recommendations might be more of a suggestion than a hard-and-fast rule, though.
    Julia Pelly, Parents, 24 Oct. 2023
  • This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, and everyone has different fluid needs.
    Stephanie Brown, Verywell Health, 25 July 2023
  • But three months is not a hard-and-fast rule—in some cases, depression can strike years after a stroke, Dr. Cronenwett said.
    Julia Ries, Health, 17 Feb. 2023
  • So there’s really no hard-and-fast number, Angelone says.
    Women's Health, 20 July 2023
  • Ultimately, going dairy-free is less about hard-and-fast nutrition and more about exploring the options that work best for you and your body.
    Karina Hoshikawa, refinery29.com, 2 Jan. 2024
  • The duo found that, starting in the population born after 1910, there wasn’t such a hard-and-fast age where mortality increased alongside age.
    Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 14 Apr. 2023
  • Medicine, dentistry, accounting—don’t have these hard-and-fast ownership rules.
    Brandon Kochkodin, Forbes, 26 Feb. 2024
  • Still, Bontempo says wound regeneration varies from person to person, so there's no hard-and-fast rule about how slow is too slow for something to heal.
    Christine Byrne, Women's Health, 29 Aug. 2023
  • The guidelines for adding texture are fairly simple, as outlined below, but there is one hard-and-fast rule Thomas urges home decorators to follow.
    Patricia Shannon, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Aug. 2023
  • Percentage of Zinc Oxide There’s no hard-and-fast rule on the percentage of ingredients to look for in a sunscreen, including zinc oxide.
    April Benshosan, Health, 22 June 2023
  • There’s no hard-and-fast income cut-off for who can and can’t take the mortgage interest deduction, but according to Cirksena, your tax bracket can help guide you to the right decision.
    Aly J. Yale, wsj.com, 12 Oct. 2023
  • Make Smart Curtain Decisions There’s no hard-and-fast rule for curtains, but a nice rideau can definitely function as a good diffuser or divider.
    Rachel Silva, ELLE Decor, 8 Mar. 2023
  • Earlier in my career, a wise editor had a hard-and-fast rule against using violent language to jazz up political copy: don’t do it.
    Philip Elliott, Time, 29 June 2023
  • There was no particular hard-and-fast routine that followed each man’s agreement to collaborate within the Scorsese-Robertson partnership.
    A.d. Amorosi, Variety, 16 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hard-and-fast.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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