Definition of "hard core" [hard core]

• The most dedicated, unfailingly loyal faction of a group or organization: the hard core of the separatist movement. (noun)
• An intractable core or nucleus of a society, especially one that is stubbornly resistant to improvement or change. (noun)
• A form of exceptionally harsh punk rock. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Since news organizations from around the world could arrange for their journalists and crews to cover Tora Bora, it is puzzling why the U.S. military could not have put more soldiers on the ground to entrap the hard core of al-Qaeda."
• "Crumpton countered that taking on the al-Qaeda hard core hiding out in Tora Bora was not the same as defeating the Taliban: This was different, this was a high mountain stronghold heavily defended."
• "John wrote speeches warning against a sure-to-return government, a government of the power classes, a government to whom we will never surrender, we Americans possessing within us a hard core that will serve us well, loyal to our king, we will never give up."