Word.ws English Dictionary

harden someone's heart

harden someone's heart verb: to make someone more resistant to something.

Verb

harden someone's heart (third-person singular simple present hardens someone's heart, present participle hardening someone's heart, simple past and past participle hardened someone's heart)

  1. (dated, idiomatic, reflexive, usually) To make someone more resistant to something.
    • Seeing so much suffering for so long hardened his heart.
    • She hardened her heart against his inevitable pleas.

Forms of harden someone's heart

third-person singular presenthardens someone's heart
present participlehardening someone's heart
past participlehardened someone's heart
pasthardened someone's heart

Questions about harden someone's heart

What does harden someone's heart mean?
Harden someone's heart means to make someone more resistant to something.
What part of speech is harden someone's heart?
Harden someone's heart is a verb.
What is the past tense of harden someone's heart?
The past tense of harden someone's heart is hardened someone's heart.

Words near harden someone's heart in the dictionary

  1. Hardeman
  2. Hardeman County
  3. Hardemans
  4. harden
  5. harden one's neck
  6. harden someone's heart
  7. harden up
  8. harden'd
  9. hardenabilities
  10. hardenability
  11. hardenable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: harden someone's heart (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-harden someone's heart.ogg.

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