Tough

The tent, made of tough canvas, held up to many abuses.

To soften a tough cut of meat, the recipe suggested simmering it for hours.

Only a tough species will survive in the desert.

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.

He had a reputation as a tough negotiator.

A bunch of the tough boys from the wrong side of the tracks threatened him.

This is a tough crowd.

1998, Lois Liederman Davitz, Joel Robert Davitz, 20 Tough Questions Teenagers Ask and 20 Tough Answers, Paulist Press, pages 6-7, 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.

Anderson: We fought hard to get here. But now the toughest part of our mission begins. Anderson: We've got to drive right through the heart of Reaper-controlled territory, break past their defenses, and get to that beacon.

2010, Rushworth M. Kidder, Good Kids, Tough Choices, Wiley (Jossey-Bass), page 96, What Lara faced, in fact, falls right into the pool of light beneath our second lens: making tough choices.

tough on crime

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.

If you don't like it, tough!

They were doing fine until they encountered a bunch of toughs from the opposition.

One of his best stories was "Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life" (1914), of which there survives only an amusing still, showing poor Mabel Normand chained to the rails by two toughs, the moustached villain threatening her with a sledge-hammer, and an awful sense of that inexorably approaching express!

He was in his early fifties, extensively tattooed, just the sort of tough I wouldn't want to meet alone in a parking lot at night, but right then he was whimpering.

We shall reminisce on how we toughed it through the winters as they reached the firm, long arm around to give the cold embrace, with ardor seldom loosed till warm winds Marched or Apriled in to soften winter's knuckles -- send rivulets of courage down to dandelions and tulips.

“No,” said Minott, “I've toughed it through the winter, and i want to stay and hear the bluebirds once more.

Universal Plant Edibility Test The following sounds like a lot of work—it is!—but that's because it comes from the US Army Survival Manual as republished in 1994 as "a civilian's best guide for toughing it, anyplace in the world...a must for campers, hikers, explorers, pilots, and others whose vocation or avocations require familiarity with the wilderness or out-of-doors..."