Word.ws English Dictionary

toughening up

toughening up is the present participle and gerund of toughen up.

Meaning of toughen up

Verb

toughen up (third-person singular simple present toughens up, present participle toughening up, simple past and past participle toughened up)

  1. (ambitransitive, idiomatic) To make or become mentally tougher.

Questions about toughening up

What is toughening up the present participle and gerund of?
Toughening up is the present participle and gerund of toughen up.

Words near toughening up in the dictionary

  1. toughened
  2. toughened up
  3. toughener
  4. tougheners
  5. toughening
  6. toughening up
  7. toughenings
  8. toughens
  9. toughens up
  10. tougher
  11. tougher nut to crack

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: toughening up (page history and authors); toughen up (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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Cite this entry: “toughening up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/toughening_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.