tough love
tough love noun: the compassionate use of stringent disciplinary measures, to attempt to improve someone's behavior. Also the alternative form of tough-love.
Noun
tough love (uncountable)
- The compassionate use of stringent disciplinary measures, to attempt to improve someone's behavior.
- [H]e found himself surrounded by a circle of caring friends and relatives who told him one by one that they loved him but could not continue to live with him or be his friend the way he was. As one of his closest friends recalled, it was a show of tough love.1995 April 12, Jane E. Brody, “Personal Health: Intervening with someone who drinks too much”, in New York Times, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2017, retrieved 06 Apr 2015
- [W]hen it came to Latin America's economic travails, Bush adhered to the principle of tough love: no more bailouts.2002 August 19, Tim Padgett, Andrew Downie, “Bush's Lost Continent”, in TIME, archived from the original on 28 Aug 2008, retrieved 06 Apr 2015
Also used as
tough love is also the alternative form of tough-love.
Forms of tough love
| third-person singular present | tough loves |
|---|---|
| present participle | tough loving |
| past participle | tough loved |
| past | tough loved |
Questions about tough love
- What does tough love mean?
- Tough love means the compassionate use of stringent disciplinary measures, to attempt to improve someone's behavior.
- What part of speech is tough love?
- Tough love is a noun.
Words near tough love in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tough love (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-tough love.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tough love.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tough_love. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.