To endure; to survive.
1830. Judy, with whom he had toughed it three years.—Mass. Spy, Jan. 27.
1834. We little fellows that wan’t big enough to wear shoes had to tuff it out as well as we could.—Seba Smith (‘Major Downing’), ‘My Thirty Years Out of the Senate,’ p. 26 (1860).
1852. You do n’t need no medicine; you ’ll tough it out, I dare say.—Knick. Mag., xxxix. 26 (Jan.).
a. 1860. A would-be settler in Colorado, in those times of deprivation and struggle, wrote his history on a board and set it up on the trail, as a warning to others coming after him: “Toughed it out here two years. Result: Stock on hand, five towheads and seven yaller dogs. Two hundred and fifty feet down to water. Fifty miles to wood and grass. Hell all around. God bless our home.”—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ p. 594 (1888).
1866. We had toughed it out five or six weeks.—Seba Smith, ‘’Way Down East,’ p. 331.
1873. One brave little schooner “toughed it out” on the distant ledge, and her captain told me that no one could stand on board of her.—Celia Thaxter, ‘Among the Isles of Shoals,’ p. 64.
