How to Use hard-fought in a Sentence

hard-fought

adjective
  • Yes, this would be a tough and hard-fought race, as this exchange makes clear.
    — Daniel Bice, jsonline.com, 6 Aug. 2025
  • Physical and hard-fought from the start.
    — Joe Rexrode, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2025
  • It's expected to be a close and hard-fought match, with few goals.
    — Ben Verbrugge, MSNBC Newsweek, 9 Sep. 2025
  • The series was extremely hard-fought, as both teams truly left it all on the field across the seven games.
    — Noah Camras, MSNBC Newsweek, 3 Nov. 2025
  • Two of the victories early in district play were extremely hard-fought.
    — Charles Baggarly, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 10 Feb. 2026
  • But on that record, even the happiest songs had a kind of love-among-the-ruins feel, where the romanticism seemed hard-fought.
    — Liz Schubauer, USA Today, 3 Oct. 2025
  • The district is one of the richest in the country and bluest in New York, but the primary is one shaping up to be hard-fought.
    — Philip Elliott, Time, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers were able to pull out a close and hard-fought win over the New York Jets in Week 1.
    — Evan Massey, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 Sep. 2025
  • Despite not scoring a single point in the first three quarters of the game, Denver scored 33 points in the fourth quarter en route to a hard-fought and shocking 33-32 win.
    — Evan Massey, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Oct. 2025
  • Measles cases had reached a record low in 2004 but were starting to trend up again, just a few years after the US had achieved elimination following a long and hard-fought battle.
    — Deidre McPhillips, CNN Money, 20 Jan. 2026
  • The deal represents a genuine achievement — hard-fought, historic in scope, and a testament to the organizing muscle the Guild has built over years of increasingly contentious labor battles.
    — George Heller, HollywoodReporter, 6 May 2026
  • The contest was hard-fought throughout, with Memorial holding a 16-13 lead after one quarter of p thanks to a pair of 3-pointers by Payton Jones.
    — Robert Thomas, Dallas Morning News, 27 Feb. 2026
  • Talarico’s numbers are notable and underscore the Senate Democratic primary will be hard-fought as the party eyes the chance to flip a Senate seat in the Lone Star State.
    — Caroline Vakil, The Hill, 2 Jan. 2026
  • After weeks of hard-fought — at times nasty — campaigning, Boca Raton residents had their say on Tuesday, reflected in the relatively large numbers of voters appearing at the polls to shape the city’s future.
    — Anthony Man, Sun Sentinel, 10 Mar. 2026
  • And besides that, with their hard-fought Final Four victories Friday over Texas and Connecticut, respectively, barometers for other programs that dream of ascending to such elite heights.
    — Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2026
  • After lengthy and hard-fought negotiations, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and members of the New York City Council reached a budget deal Tuesday just hours before the deadline.
    — Marcia Kramer, CBS News, 30 June 2026
  • The match, which was years in the making, was a dramatic and hard-fought battle that saw interference from both sides, including the surprise involvement of Copeland's wife, former WWE Women's Champion Beth Copeland.
    — Andrew Ravens‎, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 Sep. 2025
  • The flag, a symbol of the tribe’s long and hard-fought sovereignty, the ways its people have given to the Elk Grove community, and ties to land that date back, in Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen’s remarks, to time immemorial, launches the city’s commemoration of Native American Heritage Month.
    — Darrell Smith, Sacbee.com, 3 Nov. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hard-fought.' 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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