How to Use callous in a Sentence

callous

1 of 2 adjective
  • Scrape the green tissue away as well so the area won’t callous.
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 19 May 2026
  • Hands bleed and callous, muscles tear, oars can snap back and crack a rib.
    — Eric Andersson, Peoplemag, 24 Dec. 2023
  • Michel, a tall, dark, and handsome stranger who may or may not be a callous killer.
    — Deanna Janes, Harper's BAZAAR, 27 June 2023
  • To its left-wing voter base, Labour seemed callous.
    — Christian Edwards, CNN Money, 22 June 2026
  • Let cuttings callous over for 48 hours and then root in damp sand or soil.
    — Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 24 Jan. 2020
  • Drenched in sweat from the heat, Pickford would burn through work gloves and callous his hands.
    — Scott Wheeler, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2026
  • That remains true even if, lately, it has been hijacked for callous ends.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 30 Oct. 2020
  • Pankratz, in addition to coming across cold and callous, may not be too bright.
    — Jack Kelly, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2022
  • Lewis cannot seem to conceive that perhaps this kid was just a cruel and callous piece of work.
    — Jacob Bacharach, The New Republic, 12 Oct. 2023
  • The misshapen dwarf imagines that the callous little princess loves him.
    — Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2020
  • Watching one more -- not just one -- but one more black man murdered in the most callous and public way.
    — Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 7 June 2020
  • His need for a visa, her need for security, no longer seemed grasping or callous.
    — Leila Aboulela, Harper's magazine, 10 Jan. 2019
  • There are great, brave people out there trying to protect us, even the callous idiots.
    — Nick Canepa Columnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Aug. 2020
  • The next day, Jennifer seems like her usual selfish, callous self.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 21 Sep. 2019
  • My father is the only son of a callous mother and an absent father.
    — Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The New Yorker, 18 Jan. 2021
  • To begin a debate about guns in the hours after a tragedy may have been callous in another era.
    — James Hamblin, The Atlantic, 2 Oct. 2017
  • Andy was a one-of-a-kind man, and for two individuals to take his life in such a cold and callous way is sick.
    — Meredith Deliso, ABC News, 27 Sep. 2023
  • Cuttings can be left unplanted for a couple of weeks to let the wound callous over, or planted right away.
    — Leslie Crawford, sandiegouniontribune.com, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Turbo died because of the callous act, and Benji is fighting for his life.
    — Kelli Bender, PEOPLE.com, 2 Aug. 2021
  • Allow the plant’s wound to callous and watch over the course of several weeks as new roots emerge and find their way into the soil.
    — Sunset, 22 Jan. 2018
  • Which means that Amandine is callous and unkind and Jamie is snappish and blunt to a fault.
    — Daniel D'addario, Variety, 10 Nov. 2022
  • Sitting out would make a strong statement against McNair for his callous words.
    — The Tylt, AL.com, 29 Oct. 2017
  • But to anyone else, our playful banter about the injured would have seemed callous, monstrous even.
    — Cathleen Calkins, Longreads, 23 Jan. 2024
  • The overdose crisis is no excuse to be callous about their suffering.
    — Travis Rieder, WSJ, 14 June 2019
  • Prune a shrub, and the shrub will produce a callous around the wound, and likely stimulate new growth below the cut.
    — David M. Kuchta, Treehugger, 4 May 2023
  • Montand, a movie star, can express our despair and then go on to demonstrate mankind’s callous survival.
    — Armond White, National Review, 15 June 2022
  • The post drew a backlash from Internet users who called it callous, and it was taken down on the same day.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 4 May 2021
  • Nestlé and Cargill could risk sounding baldly callous in the Supreme Court next week.
    — Vivienne Walt, Fortune, 26 Nov. 2020
  • Speaker Aaron Adams said Floyd’s murder was cold, calm and callous.
    — Sara Tabin, The Salt Lake Tribune, 25 May 2021
  • After Duke was criticized for being callous, the school dropped the suit.
    — Douglas Belkin, WSJ, 6 Mar. 2018

callous

2 of 2 verb
  • His beard was rough, and his hands were cracked and calloused.
    — Peter Talbot, The Seattle Times, 14 June 2019
  • Years as a welder have left his hands calloused, nearly immune to burns.
    — Hilary Cadigan, Bon Appetit, 25 June 2018
  • So Rodriguez went to work callousing his body.
    — Joseph Hoyt, Dallas Morning News, 26 Mar. 2026
  • Do not water for the first two weeks after placement so that the ends of the cuttings can callous over.
    — Joshua Siskin, Orange County Register, 16 Feb. 2024
  • Price's emotional hide is not calloused as, oh, Curt Schilling.
    — Jeff Jacobs, courant.com, 9 June 2017
  • Hard, calloused fingers move up and down the neck, connecting chords and filling the park with music.
    — David Montero, latimes.com, 14 June 2018
  • His hands are raw, his feet are calloused, but Monday was a new day, a new challenge, inspiring new hope.
    — Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY, 27 Apr. 2020
  • Now, the fracture has healed but calloused, making flight difficult, the center said.
    — Tony Roberts, Baltimore Sun, 18 June 2024
  • Thin and tanned, hands calloused from years of wielding a chain saw, the pastor looked no different from thousands of others struggling to survive along the Purus.
    — Bishop Sand, Washington Post, 17 Feb. 2024
  • Manual laborers, for example, often have calloused hands that fingerprint scanners are unable to read reliably.
    — Nandan Nilekani, Foreign Affairs, 14 Aug. 2018
  • The significance wasn't just that Devers wowed even calloused baseball observers by solving Chapman in such short order, or that a Large Child shall lead them.
    — Tom Verducci, SI.com, 14 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'callous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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