Adjective: tough
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | tougher |
| Superlative | toughest |
Perifrastic
Sample Sentences
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The tent, made of tough canvas, held up to many abuses.
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To soften a tough cut of meat, the recipe suggested simmering it for hours.
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Only a tough species will survive in the desert.
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But before you quit turkey hunting and take up model-train collecting, let me give you the good news: you can score on tough turkeys. In fact, you can kill the toughest turkey in the woods. [2010, Brian Lovett, Hunting Tough Turkeys, Stackpole Books, page 3:]
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He had a reputation as a tough negotiator.
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A bunch of the tough boys from the wrong side of the tracks threatened him.
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They played a Beatle interview album on WBZ Boston radio. Real tough! [1965 January 12, Lou Sullivan, Diary:]
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This is a tough crowd.
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1998, Lois Liederman Davitz, Joel Robert Davitz, 20 Tough Questions Teenagers Ask and 20 Tough Answers, Paulist Press, pages 6-7,
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But let's get back to the tough question about sex before marriage. And this is a tough question. In fact we would rank the question you've both raised as pretty high on our list of tough questions.
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Anderson: We fought hard to get here. But now the toughest part of our mission begins.
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Anderson: We've got to drive right through the heart of Reaper-controlled territory, break past their defenses, and get to that beacon. [2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Earth:]
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2010, Rushworth M. Kidder, Good Kids, Tough Choices, Wiley (Jossey-Bass), page 96,
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What Lara faced, in fact, falls right into the pool of light beneath our second lens: making tough choices.
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tough on crime
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President Joe Biden is embracing tougher border measures, including shutting down the US-Mexico border, marking a stark shift from his early days in office as he tries to fend off former President Donald Trump’s attacks on immigration policy ahead of the election. [2024 January 27, Priscilla Alvarez, “Biden seizes on tougher border measures as he tries to fend off Trump attacks”, in CNN:]
Adjectives inflected like tough
sallow,
smooth,
slight,
sleigh,
sordid,
somber,
shweet,
shrill,
shrewd,
yellow,
yaller,
hard knock,
DRY,
Greek,
cut short,
unquiet,
unclean,
indiscreet,
chipper,
straicht, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
1. From Middle English tough, towgh, tou, toȝ, from Old English tōh (“tough, tenacious, holding fast together; pliant; sticky, glutinous, clammy”), from Proto-West Germanic *tą̄h(ī), from Proto-Germanic *tanhuz (“fitting; clinging; tenacious; tough”), from *tinganą (“to press upon, throng”), from Proto-Indo-European *denḱ- (“to bite”).
2. Cognates
3. Cognate with Saterland Frisian toai (“tough”), Bavarian zaach, zach (“tough”), Dutch taai (“tough”), German zäh, zähe (“tough”), Limburgish tiee (“tough”), Luxembourgish zéi (“tough”); also Ancient Greek δάκνω (dáknō, “to bite”), Albanian danë, darë (“tongs; pincers; pliers”), Sanskrit दशति (daśati, “to bite”). See: Dutch Adjectives '
taai', German Adjectives '
zäh'.
Verbs referencing "tough"
Swedish Adjectives
tuff, German Adjectives
tough, German Adjectives
taff, Dutch Adjectives
taai.