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tough luck

 
Idioms: tough break

Also, tough luck. A trying or troublesome circumstance, bad luck, as in He got a tough break when he was denied a raise, or Tough luck for the team last night. This idiom uses tough in the sense of "difficult," a usage dating from the early 1600s. The variant is also used as a sarcastic interjection, as in So you didn't make straight A's--tough luck! A slangy variant of this interjection is tough beans, and a ruder version is tough shit. [Colloquial; c. 1900]


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WordNet: tough luck
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: an unfortunate state resulting from unfavorable outcomes
  Synonyms: misfortune, bad luck, ill luck


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Idioms. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more

 

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