tough

Plural: toughs

Noun

• someone who learned to fight in the streets rather than being formally trained in the sport of boxing
• an aggressive and violent young criminal
• a cruel and brutal fellow
• A person who obtains things by force; a thug or bully.

Adjective

• Strong, resilient, and difficult to break or defeat.
• not given to gentleness or sentimentality
  • "a tough character"
• physically toughened
  • "the tough bottoms of his feet"
• resistant to cutting or chewing

Adjective Satellite

• very difficult; severely testing stamina or resolution
  • "the competition was tough"
  • "it's a tough life"
  • "it was a tough job"
• substantially made or constructed
  • "a tough all-weather fabric"
  • "some plastics are as tough as metal"
• violent and lawless
  • "tough street gangs"
• feeling physical discomfort or pain (`tough' is occasionally used colloquially for `bad')
  • "he was feeling tough after a restless night"
• unfortunate or hard to bear
  • "a tough break"
• making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe

Adj

• Strong and resilient; sturdy.
• Difficult to cut or chew.
• Rugged or physically hardy.
• Stubborn or persistent; capable of stubbornness or persistence.
• Harsh or severe.
• Rowdy or rough.
• Difficult or demanding.
• Undergoing plastic deformation before breaking.
• Strict, not lenient.

Intj

• Used to indicate lack of sympathy

Verb

Verb Forms: toughed, toughing, toughs

• To endure or withstand hardship or a difficult situation.
• To endure.
• To toughen.

Examples

• A bunch of the tough boys from the wrong side of the tracks threatened him.
• He had a reputation as a tough negotiator.
• He had to TOUGH out the final turns with a rack full of consonants.
• If you don't like it, tough!
• Only a tough species will survive in the desert.
• The tent, made of tough canvas, held up to many abuses.
• They were doing fine until they encountered a bunch of toughs from the opposition.
• This is a tough crowd.
• To soften a tough cut of meat, the recipe suggested simmering it for hours.
• tough on crime
• Winning this Words With Friends game will be a TOUGH challenge against such a skilled opponent.

Synonyms

bad, baffling, bully, elusive, goon, hard, hood, hoodlum, hooligan, knotty, problematic, problematical, punk, roughneck, rowdy, ruffian, ruffianly, rugged, street fighter, strong-armer, sturdy, thug, toughened, toughie, yob, yobbo, yobo, adamant, adamantine, ardent, arduous, bent on, bloody-minded, bullheaded, callous, certain, challenging, chronic, cold, cold-eyed, concrete, confirmed, determined, diehard, difficult, disorderly, dogged, dour, effortful, firm, flint-hearted, forbidding, frosty, granitic, grim, hard-boiled, hard-hearted, hard-nosed, hardened, hardheaded, hardhearted, hardy, harsh, headstrong, heartless, humorless, icy, immovable, incalcitrant, inclement, inflexible, insensitive, insistent, intractable, intransigent, intrepid, inveterate, iron-hearted, irrefragable, lithic, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, obstreperous, peevish, peremptory, persistent, pertinacious, pigheaded, recalcitrant, refractory, resistant, resolute, resolved, rigid, rigorous, robust, rockhearted, rocky, self-willed, severe, solid, stalwart, staunch, steadfast, steady, stern, stiff, stonehearted, stony, stonyhearted, stout, strict, stubborn, stubborn as a mule, sullen, tenacious, terminal, thistly, thran, thwart, tough, truculent, unbending, unchewable, uncompromising, uneath, unmoved, unruly, unsimple, unsympathetic, unyielding, vehement, vigorous, wilful, willful

Antonyms

tender

Anagrams of tough