harden someone's heart
(Redirected from harden one's heart)
English
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Verb
editharden someone's heart (third-person singular simple present hardens someone's heart, present participle hardening someone's heart, simple past and past participle hardened someone's heart)
- (idiomatic, usually reflexive, dated) To make someone more resistant to something.
- Seeing so much suffering for so long hardened his heart.
- She hardened her heart against his inevitable pleas.
- 1611, Authorized King James translation of Exodus 7:3–4:
- And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.
- 1998, Michael S. Ledwidge, The narrowback:
- Farrell had been to prison, and he thought the daily malignancy he had witnessed there had hardened his heart.