harden someone's heart

present singular third person hardens someone's heart · participle present hardening someone's heart · participle past hardened someone's heart · past hardened someone's heart

1. datedidiomaticreflexiveusuallyTo make someone more resistant to something.

   She hardened her heart against his inevitable pleas.

   3 more examples

   Seeing so much suffering for so long hardened his heart.

   And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.

   1611, Authorized King James translation of Exodus 7:3–4

   Farrell had been to prison, and he thought the daily malignancy he had witnessed there had hardened his heart.

   1998, Michael S. Ledwidge, The narrowback