See also: hardbitten

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Adjective edit

hard-bitten (comparative more hard-bitten, superlative most hard-bitten)

  1. callous and toughened by experience
    • 1996, Victor Davis Hanson, Introduction to The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War:
      Its author, we must remember, was above all a man of action, an elected official, a captain, a traveler, and a pragmatic intellectual, a successful combatant against warrior and disease alike, hardbitten and intimate with both privilege and disgrace, a man who suffered with and outlived most of the greatest men of his age.

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