ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Tough-love

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Part of speech verb

Quick meaning: Tough-love is a verb meaning (informal, transitive) To practice tough love; to treat someone with compassion but applying stringent discipline in order to improve their behavior.

Meaning

(informal, transitive) To practice tough love; to treat someone with compassion but applying stringent discipline in order to improve their behavior.

Example Sentences

He must be tough-loved by the Church.
The system's got some of our finest men being tough-loved to death!
He tough-loved the hell out of me without ever knowing what tough love meant.
In time, the counselors at the program tough-loved me into acknowledging that I was using my disabilities as an excuse to drink and drug.

Word Forms

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include hardball, blast, torture, maul, roughhouse, torture-test.

Related Dictionary Tools

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.