tough-minded

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tough-minded Everyone in the studio nods along to Paco’s tough-minded flexes and mafioso folktales. Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 11 Apr. 2025 There are no Cooper Flagg’s on St. John’s, but there are all these tough-minded and talented players so much fun to watch, RJ Luis Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor and Kadary Richmond and Deivon Smith, who powered through the Big East Tournament with a shoulder injury. Mike Lupica, New York Daily News, 18 Mar. 2025 Incoming players must fit his culture, be tough-minded and play with maximum effort and a fierce play demeanor. Andrew Callahan, Boston Herald, 11 Mar. 2025 James is quite tough-minded about the limits of radical chic. Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 24 Feb. 2025 The Friday night announcement was criticized by some journalists as a way to score political points and penalize tough-minded news outlets. Brian Stelter, CNN, 7 Feb. 2025 Johnson is viewed as innovative, creative and somewhat tough-minded in his coaching style. Steve Silverman, Forbes, 21 Jan. 2025 The Heat are always a tough-minded unit and it's reflected in their performance. David Faris, Newsweek, 29 Dec. 2024 This approach is not new; it could also be called tough-minded diplomacy. Dan Caldwell, Foreign Affairs, 13 Nov. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tough-minded
Adjective
  • The piece concerns political intrigue in 1682, but this performance features a blunt, vernacular new translation of the libretto; a staging of skin-crawling immediacy; and a fierce, unsentimental reading of the score.
    Jeffrey Arlo Brown, New York Times, 12 Apr. 2025
  • Ozon goes from virtue-signaling to unsentimental profundity.
    Armond White, National Review, 11 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Darcy goes running after Elizabeth in the rain…and then proposes to her in quite a clumsy and unromantic way?
    Marley Marius, Vogue, 25 Mar. 2025
  • Unforgiven recasts the genre as a pitiless, almost pathologically unromantic realm populated by twits hoping to make their name and aged gunslingers who have to make peace with their bad pasts.
    Will Leitch, Vulture, 3 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • This makes the usually levelheaded Venita’s behavior make way more sense.
    Brian Moylan, Vulture, 6 Mar. 2025
  • But LaVine attacked this season with vigor, reshaping himself into a levelheaded leader and efficient scorer who earned quiet praise around the league.
    Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 3 Feb. 2025
Adjective
  • The economic idea that people are purely rational, self-serving beings has been undermined by broad research over decades into psychology and behavioral economics.
    Erik Sherman, Forbes.com, 23 Apr. 2025
  • Listening to constituents, stakeholders, and community input to make our voices heard at the Council while balancing competing interests of other council members to bring rational discussion and mutual understanding to move ALL of Fort Worth Forward.
    Harrison Mantas, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 20 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Spectators got wind of the sensible footwear concealed by the Fiesta finery and began demanding to see the shoes.
    Jill Robbins, Southern Living, 16 Apr. 2025
  • This leaves the tires as the sensible option as to how to best improve racing at Bristol, and other short tracks.
    Jordan Bianchi, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • That makes for a logical disconnect, and palpable hypocrisy.
    U T Readers, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Apr. 2025
  • The logical conclusion is for the US to convert its gold holdings into bitcoin.
    Korok Ray, Forbes.com, 18 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Lee’s cynical cardsharp of a brother, Julius (Jacob Elordi), was meant to be part of that dream move, but the call of gambling takes Julius to Las Vegas instead.
    Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, 25 Apr. 2025
  • Now, posters are more cynical and there’s a fatalist bent to the conversations that wasn’t there before.
    Fortesa Latifi, Rolling Stone, 22 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • The retaking of public space for some of our most cherished social functions was a godsend that kept a lot of people sane and was a boon for small businesses even after things started reopening.
    New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 16 Apr. 2025
  • Toss in the idea of eternal repetition, of being condemned to relive a single experience in that loneliness is enough to make a murderer out of the most rational, sane individual.
    Steve Greene, IndieWire, 12 Apr. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Tough-minded.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tough-minded. Accessed 2 May. 2025.

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