hardened

[hahr-dnd]

adjective

1. made or become hard or harder.

2. pitiless; unfeeling.

3. firmly established or unlikely to change; inveterate.

   a hardened criminal.

4. inured; toughened.

   a hardened trooper.

5. rigid; unyielding.

   a hardened attitude.

6. (of a missile base) equipped to launch missiles from underground silos.

7. (of a missile) capable of being launched from an underground silo.

hardened

/ ˈhɑːdənd /

adjective

1. rigidly set, as in a mode of behaviour

2. toughened, as by custom; seasoned

3. (of a nuclear missile site) constructed to withstand a nuclear attack

Other Word Forms

• semihardened adjective
• unhardened adjective
• well-hardened adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of hardened¹

Middle English word dating back to 1325–75; harden, -ed ²

Example Sentences

“While China’s industry is highly skilled and highly capable, its dominant position is both enabled and hardened by subsidies, price manipulation, and scale,” said Matthew Sloustcher, MP Materials’

Read more on Barron's

Beijing is acting now to break a cycle that has hardened over a decade.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Admirers, including Mahmood, point out that as the policies hardened, the poll ratings of the Social Democrat party rose - and those of a populist right-wing movement, the People's Party fell.

Read more on BBC

Each count, Mr Teltumbde argues, "did not merely record caste, but reified and hardened it".

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As hawkish opinion has hardened, doves have had less to say publicly, though they haven’t folded.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• seasoned www.thesaurus.com