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Glite Dictionary
🧱 To harden 🧊 To toughen 😐 Emotionally hard 🪨 To fix firmly
to indurate

to indurate

9.9
To make someone or something less able to feel pain and sadness from long hard experience
  • verb
  • /ˈɪndjʊˌreɪt/
  • Formal
translation icon : endurecer
  • Years of hardship would eventually indurate him to life’s challenges.

Examples

  • Years of hardship have indurated his heart.

  • The constant friction began to indurate the surface of his hands.

  • Repeated exposure to violence can indurate a person’s emotions over time.

  • She has indurated her emotions to avoid pain.

  • Years of hardship would eventually indurate him to life’s challenges.

  • Repeated exposure to violence can indurate a person’s emotions over time.

  • Her strict upbringing helped to indurate her against feelings of fear.

Synonyms

to harden
vsto indurate
57 3.9

Make someone less sensitive to unpleasant things

causes a stronger physical or emotional toughness rather than slow habituation
to inure
vsto indurate
  • Formal
4 8.9

Become used to something unpleasant so it no longer bothers you

causes a physical or emotional toughening rather than mere being used to it
to lithify
vsto indurate
  • Literature
9.9

To make someone emotionally hard and less able to feel or care

can be physical or cause gradual toughening rather than only extreme emotional unfeeling

Antonyms

to soften
50 3.1

Make something less strong or harsh

How Hardened

to indurate
  • Formal
9.9
to toughen
15 3.9
to comfort
172 1.0

Surface Forms

indurate infinitive
indurated past
indurated past participle
indurating present participle
indurates third person singular

Morphology

indurate = in + dur + ate

The figurative sense ('harden emotionally') extends naturally from the base sense 'make hard', but the core root is not a familiar standalone English word, so the relation is only partially accessible to learners.

Etymology

Indurate comes from Latin in- ('in') plus durare ('to harden'), like in endure, and it gives the image of something becoming hardened inside. So, to indurate a person or thing is to make them 'tough' or used to harsh things.