hard-bitten
Americanadjective
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tough; stubborn.
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conditioned by battle or struggle.
a hard-bitten army.
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grim or severe in judgment or attitude.
a hard-bitten old teacher.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of hard-bitten
First recorded in 1775–85
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The cabbie, a hard-bitten postcommunist cynic, asks her if she’s visiting the archives “for work or fun.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025
Old sceptics, hard-bitten by a quarter of a century of nothingness, were beginning to turn.
From BBC • Jan. 31, 2025
Taylor’s Inez, possessed of a hard-bitten skill for self-preservation, stays one step ahead, constantly moving forward, a soft shred of hope her only cold comfort.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 31, 2023
Philip Marlowe, wearily played by Liam Neeson, is the hard-bitten private detective invented by Raymond Chandler in a series of stories and novels mostly published in the 1930s and ’40s.
From New York Times • Feb. 14, 2023
A lieutenant had approached, an older man, hard-bitten by years in the desert, with a full beard—save for a large, horizontal scar across his left cheek.
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
