1Make or become hard or harder.

等胶水干。

像似烧制变硬了的砖头。

1. 1.1 Make or become more severe and less sympathetic.
   使（或变得）冷酷无情
   with object she hardened her heart

   她硬起心肠。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • My heart should not be hardening against him but it has and yet it feels like porcelain and as if it is starting to crack.
   • If the truth be told, Biskind doesn't sound all that hardened to it.
   • They had been rejected, first, by the father of the child and then by a number of people who, after giving them shelter, eventually hardened their hearts and turned them out.
   • The mood among the high command of the Israel Defence Forces and the soldiers battling on the streets hardened.
   • Once again, the Labour Court has intervened in a bid to resolve the issues, but the trades unions' attitude to flotation is hardening.
   • A glut of sob stories, short memories and disenchantment over aid funds will create a backlash that hardens people's hearts toward tragedy.
   • As the scale of the deal struck with the PDs emerges, that resentment is hardening.
   • An instant later her eyes seemed to harden and become as hard and cold as the rock whose color they took.
   • War hardens hearts, eats the economy, and cramps political liberty.
   • The opening line was, ‘Immigration, it seems, hardens hearts and softens brains like few other issues’.
   • Softly the wind blew his wispy hair, and his cheeks hardened, the shadows falling down as the sun set farther into the sky.
   • Pro-Agreement loyalists in north Belfast report that attitudes are hardening.
   • They'll trumpet their exemplar's views when he says too much gothic severity hardens the heart, but probably don't care to publicise such statements as this.
   • Over the years of life I had hardened my heart with hatred and mistrust.
   • You could feel the concern across the house about what action will be taken and the effect that it may have - but you could also sense that people were bracing themselves and hardening their hearts for tough decisions and a very long haul.
   • Drivers' expressions harden and freeze as ruts deepen, mud thickens and the suspicion dawns that 4WD may not after all be the complete antidote to the laws of gravity and friction, but still they press on.
   • But I will say this: if this conflict should widen, or go on much longer than anticipated, I have little doubt that public support will only harden.
   • He looks as if he wants to speak, but then his eyes harden as she remains impassive.
   • Jeff Leighton, FBU Executive Council member for the Yorkshire region, said there was no doubt attitudes had continued to harden since the strike began.
   • Within the airline, attitudes appear to be hardening considerably.

   Synonyms

   toughen, desensitize, inure, make insensitive, make tough, make unfeeling, case-harden, harden someone's heart

   deaden, numb, benumb, anaesthetize

   brutalize, make callous

   rare indurate
2. 1.2 Make or become tougher and more clearly defined.
   （使）变硬（或变得更硬）
   no object suspicion hardened into certainty

   怀疑得到了证实。

   with object this served only to harden the resolve of the island nations

   Example sentencesExamples

   • His eyes hardened into bright emeralds and… I could be imagining it, but they had a somewhat reproachful gleam.
   • A surprised burst of laughter softened Adrienne's face before it hardened into familiar lines.
   • Michael Howard has finally stopped wittering on about immigration after discovering that this is hardening up the Labour support.
   • The generalised irreverence of his earlier films has hardened into a focused attack on the equal absurdities of war and the British class system.
   • No doubt plenty of people will harden in their support for the Democrats in the next election.
   • The problem is not that America has hardened into red states and blue ones.
   • He wasn't terribly popular in our part of the constituency and rumours, some of which have hardened into allegations, abounded.
   • He did this to harden up electoral support and build a core of activists committed not just to racism, but to fascism.
   • The spectacle has now hardened into tradition.
   • The Tories seem to believe that they can harden up their core support through scapegoating.
   • With the Lebanese government balking at an international investigation into the murder, tensions are rising and positions hardening.
   • As far as the office itself is concerned, companies have to break away from their traditional reliance on the perimeter firewall and look to harden up defences from within.
   • They see that his supporters are hardening in their views but not increasing their numbers.
   • The lightness of the first film had hardened into a frantic, unpleasant quality - it's easily the worst of the series.
   • And those opinions hardened into a kind of religious conviction beyond change when Hoddle left England in 1987.
   • It defends faith by preventing it from being hardened into abstractions.
   • The country has long since hardened into its own shape, and whether it holds together or breaks into pieces is largely up to the Iraqis who now have it in their hands.
   • Its pure white heart of snow often is hardened into grey and traitorous sleet.
   • The US has hardened into two virulently opposed ideological and cultural camps that are almost equal in numbers.
   • His heart froze into muddy ice and his eyes hardened into a wide glance.

   Synonyms

   toughen, desensitize, inure, make insensitive, make tough, make unfeeling, case-harden, harden someone's heart
3. 1.3no object (of prices of shares, commodities, etc.) rise and remain steady at a higher level.
   （股票、商品价格等）升水（上涨并保持高价位）
   if oil prices harden at the end of this century

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Goldman Sachs believes oil prices are continuing to harden and that buying at $55 per barrel forward offers huge potential gains to investors.
   • Property in Switzerland is becoming more popular with British skiers, as the French market hardens and becomes more expensive.
   • The latest polling evidence suggests that while opposition to Britain joining the euro is hardening, popular support for the UK staying in membership of the European Union is at its strongest in nearly a decade.
   • Harper puts great stock in the role of insurance as a way of both incentivizing efficient levels of target hardening and of coping with the risks of loss from such events.
   • Similarly, the authors of a number of country case studies report evidence of greater wage and price flexibility with the hardening of the exchange rate commitment.
   • ‘By the time the standards harden, we have something that has been used by a lot of people,’ said Bob Sutor, IBM's director of e-Business strategy.
   • This boom has been fuelled by the Indian shipping rates which are an all time high due to tonnage charges hardening in the international market.
   • Consequently less speculative accommodation is now being provided, which we believe will lead to rents hardening and a build-to-suit market becoming more preeminent.
   • Record low yields are being set this year, and yields will harden further for the foreseeable future.
   • ICICI's chief executive officer K.V.Kamath said that in spite of steel prices hardening globally, ICICI will not lend any further to the industry.
   • Bord Gáis has not hiked prices by anything like that amount to the consumer, but it is coming under increasing pressure due to the hardening of prices on the wholesale market in Britain.
   • The market is hardening all the time and I feel it will remain active over the coming months,’ said Stanley.
   • Tighter supplies of beef cattle in the midlands and northern regions of the country has led to a further hardening on prices for this weeks kill.
   • Trade has kept pretty steady over the past week, with lamb prices hardening in response to smaller numbers on the market.
   • Regardless, companies would be wise to let others take the initial plunge for at least six months while XP hardens in the marketplace.
   • Lamb prices are still holding pretty steady, with the odd sign they might be hardening.
   • However, this is looking increasingly unrealistic as the view hardens that a sustained DRAM price recovery must happen for the PC industry's traditional uptick period to start in September.
   • The commercial insurance market is hardening, as they say in the insurance business.
   • ‘This is evident in a number of markets where rents are falling, but yields are not only holding steady, but in most instances hardening,’ he said.
   • He said ‘As the prospects of a bumper EU harvest fade rapidly due to adverse weather conditions, market prices for grain will harden.’