harshening

The older ones among them who had heard similar harangues before had already sensed they were about to experience some harshening of their conditions.

Nationally, experts trace the harshening of attitudes toward juvenile offenders to the early 1990's, a time of soaring crime rates and sensational school shootings.

But the invasion of USSR by the Third Reich, on 22 June 1941, forced the French Communists to join the Resistance and greatly increased the attacks against German forces, inducing a harshening of the repression.