Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use toughen in a sentence

11 example sentences · verb

Toughen means to make tough. Example: “The new training program is designed to toughen the athletes.”

Examples of toughen by meaning

verbTo make tough.

  • The new training program is designed to toughen the athletes.
  • A cold shower every morning will toughen your skin.
  • Although the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) had toughened its stance on new third rail electrification, gaining approval for short sections of third rail to charge the batteries could be more straightforward.2025 October 29, Chris Howe, “A step closer to Liverpool dream...”, in RAIL, number 1047, page 50

More sentences with toughen

  • Hit the gym if you want to toughen up your game.From the entry game
  • Nanoscale toughening mechanisms are also identified using high load nanoindentation and in-situ TEM picoindentation..2016, Nicholas A. Yaraghi, Nicolás Guarín-Zapata, Lessa K. Grunenfelder, Eric Hintsala, Sanjit Bhowmick, Jon M. Hiller, Mark Betts, Edward…. From the entry picoindentation
  • Rafferty said it was good practice & it would toughen you up so you didn't feel pandies.2007, Sydney Bernard Smith, Alexander the Careerist, →ISBN, page 79. From the entry pandy
  • While this treatment had its toughening effects, none the less did the Landmark’s icy rebuke mortify and silence us.1909 October 18, “Querying ‘Worse’”, in The Times-Dispatch, number 18,047, Richmond, Va., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4, column 2. From the entry gingerly
  • Mzobe feels he needs to toughen up, as an umZulu man, and show his wife and son that he is the man of the house.2023, Rachel Tengetile Antones-Dlamini, Zilibele Mtumane, “Proverbs based on the people domain in David Mkhize’s Ngavele ngasho”, in South…. From the entry umZulu
  • What makes these goodies different, the company says, is that they are formed by robotic machines so that the dough is not toughened by overhandling.2008 March 26, Florence Fabricant, “Croissants Made by Robots”, in New York Times. From the entry overhandle
  • A few days before, I snicked my forefinger with the curved banana knife at the store, and a callusy scab toughened the ball of my fingertip.1961, John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent, Penguin Books, published 2008, →ISBN. From the entry callusy
  • Bright-beady of eye, bony of cheek and jaw, scarred, toughened, broken and reknit, indestructible, grisly, gladiatorial as a hornet, he was a type neither new nor unfamiliar.1903 February, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Hygeia at the Solito”, in Everybody’s Magazine, volume VIII, number 2, New…. From the entry reknit

Meaning of toughen

  1. verb To make tough.
  2. verb To become tough.

Full definition of toughen

Questions about toughen in a sentence

How do you use toughen in a sentence?
Toughen is used as a verb. For example: “The new training program is designed to toughen the athletes.”
What is a short sentence with toughen?
“A cold shower every morning will toughen your skin.”
What does toughen mean?
Toughen means to make tough.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: toughen (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use toughen in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/toughen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.