tough
n.n. strong enough to handle difficult situations or physical pain. You can also use it to describe something that is hard to do or a person who is very strict.
n. physically or mentally resilient; capable of enduring hardship or strain. Also used to describe tasks that are difficult to complete or individuals who enforce rules strictly.
The steak is very tough and hard to chew.
The manager had to make some tough decisions to save the company from closing.
Growing up in a neglected neighborhood forced him to become tough at a young age, developing a resilience that served him well in his later career.
From Middle English tough, towgh, tou, toȝ, from Old English tōh (“tough, tenacious, holding fast together; pliant; sticky, glutinous, clammy”), from Proto-West Germanic tą̄h(ī), from Proto-Germanic tanhuz (“fitting; clinging; tenacious; tough”), from Proto-Indo-European *denḱ- (“to bite”). Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian toai, Low German tei, tah, tage, Dutch taai, Luxembourgish zéi, German zäh(e), Bavarian zaach, all principally “chewy, leathery, sticky”, and hence “tenacious, resilient, dogged”.
Commonly used as a gradable adjective; can be modified by 'very', 'quite', or 'extremely'.
It was a very toughly examIt was a very tough examLearners sometimes incorrectly add an adverbial suffix when the word is functioning as an adjective describing a noun.