hard bI tən
adjective
made tough or stubborn by hard experience.
The girl’s eyes admired him, a lean hard-bitten Westerner with eyes as unblinking as an Arizona sun and with muscles like wire springs. His face still held its boyishness, but it had lost forever the irresponsibility of a few months before. She saw in him an iron will, shrewdness, courage and resource.
William MacLeod Raine , Crooked Trails and Straight