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Discuss Email this Feedback RSS/XML Permalink A.Word.A.Day--indurate This week's theme: verbs. indurate (IN-doo-rayt, -dyoo-) verb tr. 1. To make hardy, inured, accustomed. 2. To make callous or unfeeling. verb intr. 1. To make hard. 2. To become established. adjective (IN-doo-rit, -dyoo-) Hardened; callous; obstinate. [From Latin indurare (to harden), from durare (to last), from durus (hard). Ultimately from the Indo-European root deru-/dreu- (to be firm) that's the source of such other words as truth, trust, betroth, tree, endure, and druid.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Do you need to show exploding heads to illustrate the tragedy of war? Only, surely, if your audience is so indurated to on-screen suffering, that nothing else will pierce its hide." Catherine Bennett; Shootists; The Guardian (London, UK); Sep 12, 1998. "His person, though muscular, was rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung and indurated by unremitted exposure and toil." James Fenimore Cooper; The Last of the Mohicans; 1826. X-Bonus The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world. -Vikram Chandra, novelist (b. 1961)

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