- hardened
- hardened, indurated, callous mean grown or become hard. These terms are comparable in both literal (compare HARDEN 1) and extended use.Hardened is the most inclusive because it is applicable to any substance, whether originally fluid or solid, or loose or firm in texture, or elastic or inelastic, that has become solider and firmer and increasingly resistant to efforts to cut, pierce, or bend{
hardened soap
}{hardened lava
}{hardened steel
}Consequently, in extended use hardened usually implies a fixing or setting with loss of qualities (as flexibility, elasticity, pliancy, susceptibility, and impressionableness) indicative of a capacity for change{hardened beliefs
}{hardened distrust
}{a hardened criminal
}{a hardened heart
}{a hardened little reprobate— Thackeray
}Indurated is common in geological and in medical use with the implication of an increase of hardness or compactness usually in something already firm or hard and sometimes to the point of abnormality{indurated clay
}{indurated sandstone
}{an indurated abscess
}In its extended use it usually stresses abnormal or excessive hardness or stoniness that repels all efforts to penetrate or to soften{indurated stoic as I am— Adams
}{her husband's indurated conscience— Henry James
}Callous, in its earliest and still common sense, implies a hardening and thickening of the skin by constant pressure or friction and a consequent loss of sensibility in the part affected{a callous spot on the sole of his foot
}{a callous fingertip
}In extended use it usually also implies a loss of sensibility or an insensitiveness that results from constant experience{he has grown callous to such appeals
}{now callous to criticism
}{the tiresome and callous repetition of old motives which marked the decadence of the classic tradition— Binyon
}{piety ... is made callous and inactive by kneeling too much— Landor
}but sometimes callous means simply unfeeling and carries little implication of the process of hardening{a callous answer
}Analogous words: consolidated, compacted, concentrated (see COMPACT vb)Antonyms: softened
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
