Dictionary

toughhearted en · ADJ

Etymology

From tough + hearted.

Meanings

1. Surly; tending to repress the softer emotions.
   • Some folks think me a toughhearted old fellow, and so I am; but that scene was more than I could bear without shedding tears. 1854, John Greenleaf Whittier, Literary Recreations and Miscellanies, page 225:
   • The state of medicine being what it was in 1918, not a great deal could be done about the Cardinal's blood pressure. It was his cross, and for the most part he bore the cranial agony with toughhearted contempt. But today the headache was unbearable, and the Cardinal's temper was that of a bear pursued by remorseless hornets. 1950, Henry Morton Robinson, The Cardinal:
   • It is precisely for the sake of hubris that it is here. Without it, how can I lay out the untamed lustful graspingness, the secret toughhearted avarice, of the old ambition? 2017, Cynthia Ozick, The Din in the Head:

Forms