(v. t.) To make hard or harder; to make firm or compact; to indurate; as, to harden clay or iron.
(v. t.) To accustom by labor or suffering to endure with constancy; to strengthen; to stiffen; to inure; also, to confirm in wickedness or shame; to make unimpressionable.
(v. i.) To become hard or harder; to acquire solidity, or more compactness; as, mortar hardens by drying.
(v. i.) To become confirmed or strengthened, in either a good or a bad sense.
Example Sentences:
(1) Osmotically treated red cells, red cells partially hardened with increasing glutaraldehyde concentrations, and mixtures of normal and hardened red cells were used to test the method.
(2) "But if public opposition to further austerity measures hardens, the Greek government could find it even tougher to put the public finances back on a sustainable footing."
(3) It's not as if they were once tolerant and have hardened their hearts as they've grown older.
(4) Insertion of an adequate approximate amalgam filling and its finish after hardening is one of the basic preventive measures in marginal periodontopathies.
(5) Hardened skin was markedly altered physiologically.
(6) A comparison was made of the kinetics of the carboxylation reaction of bicarbonate-magnesium-activated ribulose biphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase purified from cold-hardened and unhardened winter rye (Secale cereale L. cv.
(7) Rarely has there been a potential presidential candidate so battle-hardened and ready for combat.
(8) With its huge corps of jihadists hardened by years of fighting in Kashmir, it is arguably too big to confront at a time when Pakistan is battling the TTP.
(9) However, several systematic errors of the method have to be considered, such as the influence of fat present in the spongiosa in varying concentrations as well as beam hardening effects and different calibration methods.
(10) It is the sort of malevolent onslaught that has caused many hardened media pundits to quake.
(11) Values of elongation were more than 10% even after hardening heat treatment.
(12) It’s not an entirely controversy-free choice, considering that Harden hasn’t been a starter for more than two seasons, doesn’t have the best track record as far as being a team player goes and at times has been bad enough on defense that you could make an entire YouTube playlist devoted entirely to clips of him failing to make any defensive effort whatsoever.
(13) Compared to conventional CT, the new system should significantly improve contrast resolution of the image and provide better image quantification because of its lack of beam-hardening effects and its efficient implementation of energy-selective imaging methods such as dual-photon absorptiometry and K-edge subtraction with high-atomic-number (high-Z) contrast-enhancement elements.
(14) An earlier debt sustainability analysis was leaked in the days leading up to the Greek referendum and helped harden opposition to the (less draconian) terms then on offer.
(15) He also signalled a change in policy on welfare, hardening Labour’s opposition to the government’s welfare reforms, by pledging to oppose the cap on the total amount of benefits that a person can receive.
(16) The effects of DMSO and cooling on fertilization are likely to be due to zona hardening by cortical granule release and to disorganization of the egg cytoskeleton and plasma membrane.
(17) When present during the egg activation process monodansylcadaverine (MDC-a fluorescent lysine analog) inhibits eggshell hardening and at the same time becomes covalently incorporated into the eggshell.
(18) In rigor control, crossbridges were most regular in muscles that were stabilized before freezing by prefixation in glutaraldehyde followed by 'hardening' with neutralized tannic acid, so all nucleotide treatments were terminated by such fixation.
(19) It main advantage lies in the screening of arterial diseases (very reproductable and sensitive), monitoring of the treatment (unrelated to the operator), study of hardened arteries (diabetes).
(20) Evidence from several sources indicate that the catalytic action of the peroxidase is responsible for hardening the FE through the phenolic coupling of tyrosyl residues of the FE proteins.
Soften
Definition:
(v. t.) To make soft or more soft.
(v. t.) To render less hard; -- said of matter.
(v. t.) To mollify; to make less fierce or intractable.
(v. t.) To palliate; to represent as less enormous; as, to soften a fault.
(v. t.) To compose; to mitigate; to assuage.
(v. t.) To make less harsh, less rude, less offensive, or less violent, or to render of an opposite quality.
(v. t.) To make less glaring; to tone down; as, to soften the coloring of a picture.
(v. t.) To make tender; to make effeminate; to enervate; as, troops softened by luxury.
(v. t.) To make less harsh or grating, or of a quality the opposite; as, to soften the voice.
(v. i.) To become soft or softened, or less rude, harsh, severe, or obdurate.
Example Sentences:
(1) The other trend involved softening from penetrant liquid absorption and a concomitant decrease in hardness.
(2) Golding said the government would not soften its stance on drug trafficking and it intended to use a proportion of revenues from its licensing authority to support a public education campaign to discourage pot-smoking by young people and mitigate public health consequences.
(3) Pathologically, there was diffuse incomplete softening of white matter in all cases.
(4) Aware that her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, a former labour correspondent for the Guardian who understood the range of attitudes within trade unions, had tried to soften the impression that she saw Kinnock as another General Galtieri [Argentina’s president during the Falklands war], the draft text tried to distinguish between unions, rival parties and what the final text (the one she actually delivered) called “an organised revolutionary minority” with their “outmoded Marxist dogma about class warfare”.
(5) Add the onion, cook for three minutes, stirring, until softened, then add the wine, sage, lemon peel, lemon juice and 150ml water.
(6) Welfare cuts are now becoming a matter of life or death | Letters Read more But government sources suggested the political pressures on Osborne, who has been criticised publicly by a series of Tory MPs, suggest he will act more flexibly and direct substantial resources to softening the impact of the cuts.
(7) Moisture on the skin was shown to increase the discharge to a standard stimulus, probably by its softening effect on the stratum corneum.
(8) The importance of R for cervical softening during pregnancy and its interaction with E near term and during parturition are discussed.
(9) He and Cameron have spent the week softening up opinion for huge benefit cuts in next week’s budget , due to focus on tax credits, largely paid to in-work, ”hardworking” families, victims of Britain’s swelling ranks of the under-paid.
(10) The method of aspiration with a standard electric operative aspirator should be used for evacuation of the softened brain matter.
(11) But he also suggested the administration was softening its commitment to the Minsk framework for a deal.
(12) In a casserole over a medium heat, fry the onions in the oil and butter for 5 minutes, to soften.
(13) Its lines soften, its edges fade; it shrinks into the raw cold from the river, more like a shrouded mountain than a castle built for kings.
(14) The wizened fish is hammered with a mallet to soften it so you can pull it off in strips to eat.
(15) The substitution of the softeners with deionisers solved this important and unusual clinical problem.
(16) Softening and elution are not sufficient for constriction, however, since high potassium, 2,4-dinitrophenol, and cyanide inhibited constriction without inhibiting the softening or elution of axoplasm.
(17) Ribotyping patterns of aeromonads recovered from well 1, detention basin, sand filter, softener, and distribution samples were compared with those of the five clinical isolates.
(18) By softening these insects in a detergent solution, however, it is possible to make most observations in the same way as on fresh material.
(19) His and Osborne's post-election "softening up" is returning to haunt them.
(20) But recently, their attitude has softened as they realise the importance of music to the island.