HARDENED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hardened mean? 

• HARDENED (adjective)
  The adjective HARDENED has 5 senses:

1. used of persons; emotionally hardened

2. made hard or flexible or resilient especially by heat treatment

3. protected against attack (especially by nuclear weapons)

4. made tough by habitual exposure

5. converted to solid form (as concrete)

  Familiarity information: HARDENED used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HARDENED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Used of persons; emotionally hardened

Synonyms:

case-hardened; hard-boiled; hardened

Context example:

faced a case-hardened judge

Similar:

hard (dispassionate)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Made hard or flexible or resilient especially by heat treatment

Synonyms:

hardened; tempered; toughened; treated

Context example:

tempered glass

Similar:

curable (capable of being hardened by some additive or other agent)

sunbaked (baked or hardened by exposure to sunlight; not burned)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Protected against attack (especially by nuclear weapons)

Context example:

hardened missile silos

Antonym:

soft (not protected against attack (especially by nuclear weapons))

Sense 4

Meaning:

Made tough by habitual exposure

Synonyms:

enured; hardened; inured

Context example:

our successors...may be graver, more inured and equable men

Similar:

tough; toughened (physically toughened)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Converted to solid form (as concrete)

Synonyms:

hardened; set

Similar:

hard (resisting weight or pressure)

 Context examples 

They are made up of layers of a hardened protein called keratin, which is also in your hair and skin.

(Nail Diseases, NIH)

Waldron, though a hardened lecturer and a strong man, became rattled.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Instead, the findings suggest a planet devoid of a massive atmosphere, and possibly hint at a lava world where the lava would become hardened on the night side and unable to transport heat.

(Spitzer Maps Climate Patterns on a Super-Earth, NASA)

Hal’s theory, which he practised on others, was that one must get hardened.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Yet he had gone without, and hardened himself in the process.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs. Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Snow fell, and the waters were hardened, but I rested not.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It gave even my hardened nerves a shudder to look at it.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)