Scrabble?! HARDEN

Definitions of HARDEN in various dictionaries:

verb - become hard or harder

verb - make hard or harder

verb - harden by reheating and cooling in oil

verb - make fit

verb - cause to accept or become hardened to

To make hard or harder.

To enable to withstand physical or mental hardship.

To make unfeeling, unsympathetic, or callous: “To love love and not its meaning hardens the heart in monstrous ways” (Archibald MacLeish).

To make sharp, as in outline.

To protect (nuclear weapons) by surrounding with earth or concrete.

To become hard or harder.

To rise and become stable.

The central meaning shared by these verb s is “to make resistant to hardship, especially through continued exposure”: was hardened to life on the frontier; is becoming acclimated to the tropical heat; was acclimatized by long hours to overwork; became seasoned to life in prison; toughened by experience and criticism.

adj - firm and unyielding