iron-jawed

[ ahy-ern-jawd ]

adjective

1. having a jaw of or like iron:

   an iron-jawed press; an iron-jawed fighter.

2. fiercely determined:

   an iron-jawed will.

Word History and Origins

Origin of iron-jawed¹

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

As Wheatley, McDermott spent two seasons as the primary nemesis to Christopher Meloni’s iron-jawed detective, Elliot Stabler, before soaring off “Organized Crime” in March — Wheatley’s ex-wife drove herself off a cliff while Wheatley rode shotgun; her body was found but his was not.

From New York Times

Damien Chazelle’s film about the iron-jawed, ice-water-in-the-veins pilot and astronaut Neil Armstrong is a rocket pointed directly at the distant planet known as Awards Season.

From The Guardian

One of the most breathtaking things about #MeToo — just behind the iron-jawed fury of its deponents — is how swiftly and decisively it pulled conversations about sexual predation from the conceptual to the concrete.

From New York Times

And so this reporter found himself hooked up, buttoned down, tethered to some reliable, iron-jawed first responders and climbing gingerly into a Potomac that was — according to the monitors at the Little Falls Pump Station — just .04 of a degree on the wet side of frozen.

From Washington Post

Jake LaMotta, an iron-jawed boxer who brawled his way to the world middleweight championship in 1949 and whose tempestuous life was compellingly portrayed in an Oscar-winning performance by Robert De Niro in the film “Raging Bull,” died Sept. 19 at a rehabilitation facility in Aventura, Fla.

From Washington Post

Related Words

• certain
• established
• resolved
• settled
• sure