toughie

When the waitress, a toughie who intimidated us when she took our order, brought out the soup, she glared at us as she dropped it at the table.

Mind you, the first knockout hurdle on the road to Istanbul looks a toughie.

The Supreme Court will end up hearing about 70 cases a year — in theory the toughest of the toughies — and 40% of the time the justices will still issue a unanimous ruling.

In contrast, Mapplethorpe, who emerged in the anything-goes 1970s, explored his various identities “as a woman, as a gangster, as a devilish imp, as a toughie, as nothing special.”

When asked about Judy Garland, he’d say, “I thought she was going to be a toughie, but she wasn’t.”