Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To make hard or harder.
  • intransitive verb To enable to withstand physical or mental hardship.
  • intransitive verb To make unfeeling, unsympathetic, or callous.
  • intransitive verb To make fixed, settled, or less subject to change.
  • intransitive verb To make less vulnerable to attack by surrounding with earth or concrete.
  • intransitive verb To become hard or harder.
  • intransitive verb To become fixed, settled, or less subject to change.
  • intransitive verb To become inured.
  • intransitive verb To take on a disapproving or severe appearance.
  • intransitive verb To rise and become stable. Used of prices.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make hard or more hard in substance or texture; make firm or compact; indurate: as, to harden steel, clay, or tallow; to harden the hands or muscles by toil.
  • To dry (clothes) by airing.
  • To make hard or harder in feeling; strengthen or confirm with respect to any element of character; inure; toughen; especially, to make indifferent, unfeeling, obstinate, wicked, etc.
  • Synonyms To accustom, discipline, train, toughen, habituate, steel, brace, nerve.
  • To become hard or more hard; acquire solidity or compactness: as, mortar hardens in drying.
  • To become inured or toughened; especially, to become unfeeling.
  • To rise in price; grow dear: as, the market hardens.
  • Of hards or inferior flax.
  • noun Hards or inferior flax.
  • noun A cloth of coarse fiber and texture, made from hards.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To make hard or harder; to make firm or compact; to indurate.
  • transitive verb To accustom by labor or suffering to endure with constancy; to strengthen; to stiffen; to inure; also, to confirm in wickedness or shame; to make unimpressionable.
  • intransitive verb To become hard or harder; to acquire solidity, or more compactness.
  • intransitive verb To become confirmed or strengthened, in either a good or a bad sense.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To become hard (tough, resistant to pressure).
  • verb transitive, ergative To make something hard or harder (tough, resistant to pressure).
  • verb transitive, dated To become or make a person or thing resistant or less sensitive.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make fit
  • verb cause to accept or become hardened to; habituate
  • verb harden by reheating and cooling in oil
  • verb become hard or harder
  • verb make hard or harder

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

hard +‎ -en

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Examples

  • How inconstant are your feelings! but a moment ago you were moved by my representations, and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints?

    Chapter 17 2010

  • As she watched his expression harden, she decided he wouldn't consider the comparison flattering.

    Only You Leigh Sutherland & Peg Greenwood 1997

  • Elena could see the other’s eyes go cold, her expression harden to granite.

    Wit'ch Storm Clemens, James 1999

  • "As long as the conflict goes on here, it's logical to assume that the attitudes of all sides will harden, which is deeply regrettable."

    Top Israel Rabbis: Don't Sell Property To Non-Jews AP 2010

  • "As long as the conflict goes on here, it's logical to assume that the attitudes of all sides will harden, which is deeply regrettable."

    Top Israel Rabbis: Don't Sell Property To Non-Jews AP 2010

  • "As long as the conflict goes on here, it's logical to assume that the attitudes of all sides will harden, which is deeply regrettable."

    Top Israel Rabbis: Don't Sell Property To Non-Jews AP 2010

  • "As long as the conflict goes on here, it's logical to assume that the attitudes of all sides will harden, which is deeply regrettable."

    Top Israel Rabbis: Don't Sell Property To Non-Jews AP 2010

  • "As long as the conflict goes on here, it's logical to assume that the attitudes of all sides will harden, which is deeply regrettable."

    Top Israel Rabbis: Don't Sell Property To Non-Jews AP 2010

  • So, vigilance is really extremely important in this, but so are the efforts that are being made to so-called harden the country.

    CNN Transcript Feb 3, 2002 2002

  • Glancing over at Lord Gunthar, he saw the knight's expression harden, and he knew he experienced the same thing.

    Test of the Twins Weis, Margaret 1986

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