tough love en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Meanings
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(idiomatic, uncountable) The compassionate use of stringent disciplinary measures, to attempt to improve someone's behavior.
And she offers tough love: “There are no ugly women in the world, just lazy ones,” she says during a “Mind Your Manners” hygiene lesson in which she instructs her students to smell their used dental floss to find out if they have bad breath.
2023 January 2, Maureen O’Connor, “The Etiquette Guru Who Broke Up With a Boyfriend Over Text”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2023:[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:Trump surmised: Yes, we might have our internal squabbles, but I am bringing tough love because we are all in this together. We are the standard bearers of western civilisation.
2026 January 21, David Smith, “Trump paints himself as great white hope in racism-drenched Davos speech”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 Feb 2026:[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:
Translations (7)
pl trudna miłość (Translations) · es amor duro (Translations) · ru суровая любовь (Translations) · pl twarda miłość (Translations) · fi kova rakkaus (Translations) · ru тяжёлая любовь (Translations) · es amor serrano[, más te pego, más te quiero] (Translations)