TOUGH

Meaning

A person who obtains things by force; a thug or bully.

“They were doing fine until they encountered a bunch of toughs from the opposition.”

• verbTo endure.
• adjectiveStrong and resilient; sturdy.
• interjectionUsed to indicate lack of sympathy

TOUGH as a word-puzzle answer

TOUGH is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (O, U) and 3 consonants (T, G, H). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.

It leans on high-frequency letters (T, O), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.