hard-bitten

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The cabbie, a hard-bitten postcommunist cynic, asks her if she’s visiting the archives “for work or fun.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025

He is hard-bitten by reality in these games, after all.

From BBC • Dec. 14, 2024

Dip into the dad-canon iconography of Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective series, of which more than 40 hard-bitten installments have been released since the early 1970s?

From New York Times • Jan. 13, 2024

Cleo is “such an Artful Dodger character — pretty hard-bitten, pretty cynical, not sentimental,” Jonas Pate says.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 27, 2023

The guards, some of whom had previously identified themselves as pacifists, fell quickly into the role of hard-bitten disciplinarians.

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell