TOUGH in a Sentence

Learn TOUGH from example sentences, some of them are from classic books. These examples are selected from a corpus with 300,000 sentences, including classic works and current mainstream media. Some sentences also link to their contexts.

For TOUGH, below is one of 140 sentences:
He chose a new and a tough spear, lest the wood of the former might have been strained in the previous encounters he had sustained.

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 Meanings and Examples of TOUGH
Definition Example Sentence Classic Sentence
tough
 a.  hard; difficult; feeling physical discomfort or pain
Classic Sentence: (37 in 3 pages)
1  As for Aunt Pitty, she was nervously trying to stifle a belch, for the rooster they had had for supper was a tough old bird.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XVII
2  His body seemed so tough and hard, as tough and hard as his keen mind.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XVII
3  For all his lankiness he was tough, and good nursing pulled him through.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXX
4  He paused and gnawed the tough pone and Scarlett shivered.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXXVII
5  He's stubborn and he's got a mouth as tough as iron.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXXVIII
6  That doesn't help a man pull himself out of a tough fix, like we're all in now.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XL
7  He was tough and hard and there was no nonsense about him.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XLII
8  They are a tough and bullheaded lot.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XLIX
9  The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole extent.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.
10  The Negro tough, on the contrary, is given to just that kind of offending, and he almost invariably singles out white people as his victims.
Southern Horrors By Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Context  Highlight   In V
11  He affects a "tough" aspect, wearing his hat on one side and keeping a cigarette in his mouth all the evening.
The Jungle By Upton Sinclair
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 1
12  Its owner was a Mr. Frederick, a tough, shrewd man, perpetually involved in lawsuits and with a name for driving hard bargains.
Animal Farm By George Orwell
Context  Highlight   In Chapter IV
13  An operation which, taken in connexion with the bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with some liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the eyes of a tough little bird.
Hard Times By Charles Dickens
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 1: CHAPTER XVI
14  He chose a new and a tough spear, lest the wood of the former might have been strained in the previous encounters he had sustained.
Ivanhoe By Walter Scott
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER VIII
15  Poor thing, she too had some of the vulnerability of the wild hyacinths, she wasn't all tough rubber-goods and platinum, like the modern girl.
Lady Chatterley's Lover By D H Lawrence
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 10
Example Sentence: (103 in 7 pages)
16  The tough road often leads to the top.
17  He built up a reputation as a tough businessman.
18  No matter how tough the life is, you will eventually find someone who'd make you willing to stay with.
19  He is a tough negotiator.
20  Mrs Thatcher was a tough and uncompromising politician.
21  I've always been drawn to tough, gutsy women.
22  A spell of tough luck discouraged him.
23  It is a tough nut for him to crack.
24  We need a mayor who is tough enough to clean up this town.
25  The vote will enable the Prime Minister to push through tough policies.
26  Whoever wins the election is going to have a tough job getting the economy back on its feet.
27  He is a man with a reputation for being tough and unafraid of unpopular decisions.
28  Both sides have tried to outdo each other to show how tough they can be.
29  Unless you are trying to lose weight to please yourself, it's going to be tough to keep your motivation level high.
30  Things were pretty tough at first.