get tough with

1. Become harsh, severe, unyielding with someone. For example, We have to get tough with these people or we'll get nowhere. [c. 1930]

Example Sentences

Chen, a former deputy L.A. mayor, has been demanding that insurance companies deliver what their clients paid for, and imploring state insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara to get tough with them.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

You feel underestimated nine times out of 10, and you’ve got to get tough with that and get used to it and know that it’s not personal.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Mainstream parties could patch together winning coalitions with banker-friendly fiscal policies and modest doses of right-wing culture war — promising to get tough with immigrants, indulge anti-trans hysteria and crack down on rhetorical wokeness — without entirely going over to the Dark Side.

Read more on Salon

“So much of what we see now about the war in Vietnam is a function of the individual personalities and characters of people and their inability to just get tough with themselves.”

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His strategy has therefore been to get tough with Pyongyang.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• argue 
• bicker 
• break with 
• carp 
• complain 
• differ 
• fall out 
• feud 
• spar 
• squabble 
• tangle 
• wrangle