How to Use hard-won in a Sentence

hard-won

adjective

• Her resilience is hard-won, sources say.
  — Simon Perry, PEOPLE, 29 Apr. 2026
• But the joy in his images was hard-won, born out of family tragedy.
  — Chris Wiley, New Yorker, 4 July 2026
• Getting there meant the rapid dismantling of some of her hard-won skills.
  — Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone, 14 Aug. 2026
• Healing is slow, and every small moment of peace feels hard-won.
  — Brandi Hicken, Time, 12 Dec. 2025
• Hollingworth’s arrival at this joyful point was hard-won.
  — Aimee Cliff, Pitchfork, 16 Jan. 2026
• The progress earned by ethnic minorities and women in the armed services was hard-won.
  — Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 8 Apr. 2026
• In a world where trust is hard-won, a privacy-first AI assistant could be a differentiator that keeps customers coming back.
  — Sandy Carter, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
• The federal recognition was hard-won, having come after a wave of unrest among workers and labor activists put the issue of workers' rights into public view.
  — Saman Shafiq, USA Today, 1 Sep. 2025
• The federal recognition was hard-won, having come after a wave of unrest among workers and labor activists brought the issue of workers' rights into public view.
  — Saman Shafiq, USA Today, 19 Aug. 2025
• His debonair manner—which came to embody an American ideal of sophistication even more than an English one—was as hard-won as Edmund Hillary’s summit.
  — Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 7 Sep. 2026
• Tate captures the tension between opportunity and limitation, reminding readers that equality is often pursued in spaces where recognition is hard-won.
  — Literary Hub, 26 June 2026
• Traditionally, music making has required hard-won skills - the infamous 10,000 hours of practice - plus a certain amount of money to buy guitars, amps, computers, software and studio equipment.
  — Trevor Clawson, Forbes.com, 17 Aug. 2025