tough break

1. Also, tough luck. A trying or troublesome circumstance, bad luck, as in He got a tough break when he was denied a raise, or Tough luck for the team last night. This idiom uses tough in the sense of “difficult,” a usage dating from the early 1600s. The variant is also used as a sarcastic interjection, as in So you didn't make straight A's—tough luck! A slangy variant of this interjection is tough beans, and a ruder version is tough shit. [Colloquial; c. 1900]

Example Sentences

“It still is 100% their responsibility to provide power and gas. … If they lose money doing it, tough break,” said Cruikshank, who will be at the meeting.

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Gilbert got a tough break when Jose Miranda hit a swinging bunt that turned into an infield single and loaded the bases.

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“It was a tough break for us, there’s no doubt about it,” Rivers said when asked about Portis’ early departure.

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He credited doctors and nurses for catching what he called a “tough break.”

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“Tough break,” Siraj tells me when we’re in the hall.

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Related Words

• adversity 
• calamity 
• catastrophe 
• danger 
• difficulty 
• disaster 
• discomfort 
• fatigue 
• grief 
• hazard 
• injury 
• misery 
• misfortune 
• oppression 
• peril 
• persecution 
• sorrow 
• suffering 
• torment 
• trouble