tough going
4
5.3
- noun
- Informal
:
situación difícil
- While Europe may be the toughest market, right now, Marchionne said he believes the industry, as a whole, will find it tough going just about everywhere in the next half-decade or more.
And when it gets muddy, that is tough going, right?
- And when it gets muddy, that is tough going, right?
- Now when I'm in Boston with like the the Patriots, it's been tough going for my live wired brain to switch to the Patriots to be.
Examples
-
Now, maintaining the speed of our advance will no doubt be tough going, as it's a single highway.
-
Starting a new job can be tough going, especially when you are learning everything from scratch.
-
But this was tough going.
Academic text (2007) -
But it is tough going.
Academic text (2001) -
Today has been tough going.
Blog text (31) -
The passes are tough going any time of the year, and once we're over and beyond, we'll be on our own.
Fiction book (1991) -
"It's been tough going out there, year after year, with nothing conclusive to tell them," he says.
Academic text (1997) -
It was tough going at the beginning, and there were a lot of trucks in front of us.
Blog text (21) -
Oh, it'll be tough going to start, but that's the way Cy and I built this company.
-
I also found it tough going through the Quran as a novice because, since it was all new, I did not have any framework to connect it with.
Blog text (18)
Synonyms
∞
3.1
A difficult task that tests a person's skill and will
651
2.4
A hard part of a task that needs extra effort or is not easy to understand
382
2.9
A period when someone has difficulty or trouble
134
3.1
A period when someone faces problems or a lot of stress
29
3.4
A difficult task that needs a lot of effort
25
6.6
A difficult task that needs a lot of effort to succeed
16
6.9
A task that is very hard to do
10
8.1
A period when someone has many problems to deal with
4
7.6
A person, question, or thing that is very difficult to deal with
4
3.7
A difficult situation that is hard to deal with
2
6.8
A difficult task that needs a lot of effort
2
6.5
A period when someone has many problems
2
6.1
A time when someone has many problems and finds life difficult
1
5.2
A very difficult task that you must overcome
1
7.1
Hard to understand or slow to get through
1
7.0
A difficult time that is hard to get through
1
3.9
A difficult time that is hard to get through
A difficult problem that needs careful handling
A difficult problem with no easy solution
A difficult task that takes a long time and a lot of effort
A very hard job that makes your body very tired
A very difficult task that needs a lot of effort
A very difficult and frustrating task
A very difficult problem or task that tests your skill
A difficult task that needs a lot of effort
Antonyms
How Difficult
- Informal
4
5.3
- Informal
16
2.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'tough' (difficult) modifies 'going' (progress/way of proceeding), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer that the progress or situation is difficult. This pattern (e.g. 'hard going') is common and cross-linguistically obvious, making the expression immediately understandable from its parts.
Etymology
The phrase tough going comes from the image of walking over hard, rough ground: the tough surface makes going slow and tiring. That's why it means 'difficult' or needing a lot of effort.