hard-bitten

Adjective

hard-bitten (comparative more hard-bitten, superlative most hard-bitten)

1. Callous and toughened by experience.
   • It was written of Henry George Ward, M.P. for Sheffield from 1837 to 1849, that "he was also much occupied with railway enterprise in the days of early speculation." This suggests a hard-bitten man of commerce, but Ward had served in the Diplomatic Service and he was Minister Plenipotentiary to...1960 March, N. Caplan, “The Railway Member of Parliament”, in Railway Magazine, page 209
   • Its author, we must remember, was above all a man of action, an elected official, a captain, a traveler, and a pragmatic intellectual, a successful combatant against warrior and disease alike, hardbitten and intimate with both privilege and disgrace, a man who suffered with and outlived most of the...1996, Victor Davis Hanson, Introduction to The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War