DCHP-1 Online
hardpan † 
1 n. a compacted layer of hard soil, especially clay, lying beneath the subsoil.
- 1887 The boulder clay is cemented together into a solid mass like concrete, and the well drillers call it hard pan.
- 1961 Stationmen excavating by hand cut of hardpan and boulders on Hudson Bay Railway, 1914.
2 n. any hard, cement-like ground.
- 1951 He unhooked his horses and pulled the Bloater to safety on a dry patch of hardpan road.
- 1954 Somewhere, in a patch of hardpan, they found the track of a hobnailed boot--a right foot with nine nails in it.
3 n. Fig. rock bottom; lowest limit; the basic part or issue.
- 1871 We have decided to cut all "dead advertisements," and come down to "hard pan."
- 1886 If You Want to Purchase Fall Goods Away Down at Hard Pan Prices, go to Daniel J. Lynch's One Price Cash Store.
- 1889 When the sombre shades of poverty have entered his old shack, he has in the miner's phraseology, got down to bed rock or hard pan. . . .
- 1920 It took me just about ten minutes to get down to hard-pan, with him, once he was convinced I meant business.
- 1887 The boulder clay is cemented together into a solid mass like concrete, and the well drillers call it hard pan.