hard-nosed vs head-on

hard-nosed

adj
  • tough and relentlessly practical and thus not given to sentiment. 

  • hardheaded, stubborn 

  • guided by practical experience and observation rather than by theory 

head-on

adj
  • Direct, abrupt, blunt or unequivocal; not prevaricating. 

  • Of a collision, from the front or in the direction of motion. 

noun
  • A collision from the front. 

adv
  • With the front of a vehicle. 

  • With direct confrontation. 

How often have the words hard-nosed and head-on occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )