1 to become or make sth become firm, stiff or solid:
[V] The varnish takes a few hours to harden. * (figurative) Their suspicions hardened into certainty. * [VN] a method for hardening and preserving wood
2 if your voice, face, etc. hardens, or you harden it, it becomes more serious or severe:
[V] Her face hardened into an expression of hatred. * [VN] He hardened his voice when he saw she wasn't listening.
3 if sb's feelings or attitudes harden or sb/sth hardens them, they become more fixed and determined:
[V] Public attitudes to the strike have hardened. * Opinion seems to be hardening against the invasion. * [VN] The incident hardened her resolve to leave the company.
4 [VN] [usuallypassive] to make sb less kind or less affected by extreme situations:
Joe sounded different, hardened by the war. * They were hardened criminals (= they showed no regret for their crimes). * In this job you have to harden your heart to pain and suffering. * Life has hardened me. * I need to harden myself against disappointment.
hardening noun [U,sing.]:
hardening of the arteries * a hardening of attitudes towards one-parent families
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for harden is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is harden a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, harden is tagged as verb.
Does harden appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — harden appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
