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Tough   /təf/   Listen
Tough

adjective
(compar. tougher; superl. toughest)
1.
Not given to gentleness or sentimentality.
2.
Very difficult; severely testing stamina or resolution.  Synonym: rugged.  "The rugged conditions of frontier life" , "The competition was tough" , "It's a tough life" , "It was a tough job"
3.
Physically toughened.  Synonym: toughened.
4.
Substantially made or constructed.  Synonym: sturdy.  "Sturdy canvas" , "A tough all-weather fabric" , "Some plastics are as tough as metal"
5.
Violent and lawless.  Synonym: ruffianly.  "Tough street gangs"
6.
Feeling physical discomfort or pain ('tough' is occasionally used colloquially for 'bad').  Synonym: bad.  "She felt bad all over" , "He was feeling tough after a restless night"
7.
Resistant to cutting or chewing.
8.
Unfortunate or hard to bear.  Synonym: hard.  "A tough break"
9.
Making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe.  Synonyms: baffling, elusive, knotty, problematic, problematical.  "I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast" , "A problematic situation at home"
noun
1.
Someone who learned to fight in the streets rather than being formally trained in the sport of boxing.  Synonym: street fighter.
2.
An aggressive and violent young criminal.  Synonyms: goon, hood, hoodlum, punk, strong-armer, thug, toughie.
3.
A cruel and brutal fellow.  Synonyms: bully, hooligan, roughneck, rowdy, ruffian, yob, yobbo, yobo.



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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tough" Quotes from Famous Books



... they ugly yaller legs! Now then, owd lad, what mun we do wi'it, think'st thou? Mun I finish it off an' carry it wi' me to Jack Orme's for a marlock? Eh! the lads 'ud laugh if they see me coomin' in wi' it! I'll tell 'em I'd brought 'em a Crestmas dinner in July. My word, it's tough enough! I reckon it 'ud want keepin'; it wouldn't be ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... "Tough luck!" Polly laid her hand unconsciously on his arm. "Don't give up, though. You may make good if you work awfully ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... boldest streams it was necessary to construct suspension bridges, as they are termed, made of the tough fibres of the maguey, or of the osier of the country, which has an extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength. These osiers were woven into cables of the thickness of a man's body. The huge ropes, then stretched across the water, were conducted through rings ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... "You're pretty tough as a human proposition, but we can't see you suffer out here in ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... long; shaped like a fish—plenty of sea shore, sandy, stormy, uninviting, the horizon boundless, the air too strong for invalids, the bays a wonderful resort for aquatic birds, the south-side meadows cover'd with salt hay, the soil of the island generally tough, but good for the locust-tree, the apple orchard, and the blackberry, and with numberless springs of the sweetest water in the world. Years ago, among the bay-men—a strong, wild race, now extinct, or rather entirely ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman


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