American English pronunciation
How to pronounce tough
IPA transcription: ['tʌf]
Hear “tough” pronounced
['tʌf]
Quality: 1.00
['tʌf]
Quality: 1.00
['tʌf]
Quality: 1.00
Noun
-
a cruel and brutal fellow
-
an aggressive and violent young criminal
-
someone who learned to fight in the streets rather than being formally trained in the sport of boxing
Adjective
-
not given to gentleness or sentimentality
“a tough character”
-
physically toughened
“the tough bottoms of his feet”
-
resistant to cutting or chewing
Adjective
-
very difficult; severely testing stamina or resolution
“a rugged competitive examination”
“the rugged conditions of frontier life”
“the competition was tough”
“it's a tough life”
“it was a tough job”
-
feeling physical discomfort or pain (`tough' is occasionally used colloquially for `bad')
“my throat feels bad”
“she felt bad all over”
“he was feeling tough after a restless night”
-
substantially made or constructed
“sturdy steel shelves”
“sturdy canvas”
“a tough all-weather fabric”
“some plastics are as tough as metal”
-
making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe
“a baffling problem”
“I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast”
“a problematic situation at home”
-
violent and lawless
“the more ruffianly element”
“tough street gangs”
-
unfortunate or hard to bear
“had hard luck”
“a tough break”
Usage examples
- It’s tough for him, but it’s even tougher for the team.
- Regarded as a tough fireball pitcher, Cloninger also was a dangerous power hitter.
- At first, studying correlation in graphs is tough for me.
- They had a tough time of it.
- Because we're the people and we're tough!
- At first, studying correlation in graphs is tough for me.
- Clancharlie had this toughening of being little moved by it.
- He's got this great toughness to him but not an unthinking toughness.
- But this job was too tough for her.
- At first, studying correlation in graphs is tough for me.