hard-featured

A stern, hard-featured man looked out from the portrait.

Definition

Adjective: Having facial features that are stern, severe, or lacking in softness; a face that appears tough, unyielding, or harsh in expression.

Usage Examples

• (His facial features appeared stern and unyielding.)
• (Her face looked severe and unwelcoming.)
• (The woman's facial features seemed harsh and unsmiling.)

Advanced Usage

• "hard-featured" in literature: Often used to describe characters who are emotionally hardened or physically weathered by life.
  • In the novel, the hard-featured farmer rarely smiled, reflecting his difficult life. (The farmer's stern face mirrored his hardships.)

Variants and Related Words

• Hardness (n): the quality of being firm, unyielding, or severe.
  • The hardness of his expression made him seem unfriendly. (The severity of his face.)
• Featured (adj): having a particular type of facial features (usually used in combination, e.g., "sharp-featured").
  • She was a delicate-featured woman, unlike her hard-featured brother. (Her facial features were soft, not harsh.)

Synonyms

• Stern: serious and unyielding in expression.
• Severe: strict or harsh in appearance.
• Austere: having a plain, severe, or forbidding look.
• Unsmiling: not showing friendliness or warmth in facial expression.

Antonyms

• Soft-featured: having gentle, kind, or pleasant facial features.
• Benevolent: kindly and good-natured in appearance.

Related Idioms

• Hard as nails: (of a person) tough, unfeeling, or severe in character or appearance.
  • He was hard as nails, with a hard-featured face to match. (He was emotionally tough and looked it.)
• Set in stone: (of an expression or decision) fixed and unchangeable, often implying hardness.
  • Her hard-featured expression was set in stone, showing no emotion. (Her face was rigid and expressionless.)