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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sturdy
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
sturdy build (=not very tall but strong and healthy)
▪ an eight-year-old boy of sturdy build
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
sturdy walking shoes
▪ a sturdy jaw
▪ a table that was old and sturdy
▪ Maria was small and sturdy, with dark hair and dark eyes.
▪ Mrs Harding herself was thin and frail but her son was a sturdy sixteen-year- old.
▪ She was a large, sturdy woman in her mid-fifties.
▪ The ponies used underground were sturdy little animals that came originally from Northern Spain.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Before that time, alcohol had been in general use to deaden pain, though some sturdy souls rejected it on principle.
▪ Hanging about a foot from attached wall mounts, these sturdy steel bells would grace any garden.
▪ He was short and sturdy and when he was on a horse he seemed a part of it.
▪ However, the development and deployment of a sturdy handpump has been at the center of many of these projects.
▪ Somewhere the sturdy beggars nursed their wounds and cursed.
▪ The digital makeup of the sensor means it is sturdy and fast, yet simple and cheap to produce.
▪ We have seen shallow, shortlived economic recoveries, sturdy, eight-year booms, temporary slowdowns, and deep depressions.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sturdy

Sturdy \Stur"dy\, a. [Compar. Sturdier; superl. Sturdiest.] [OE. sturdi inconsiderable, OF. estourdi stunned, giddy, thoughtless, rash, F. ['e]tourdi, p. p. of OF. estourdir to stun, to render giddy, to amaze, F. ['e]tourdir; of uncertain origin. The sense has probably been influenced by E. stout.]

  1. Foolishly obstinate or resolute; stubborn; unrelenting; unfeeling; stern.

    This sturdy marquis gan his hearte dress To rue upon her wifely steadfastness.
    --Chaucer.

    This must be done, and I would fain see Mortal so sturdy as to gainsay.
    --Hudibras.

    A sturdy, hardened sinner shall advance to the utmost pitch of impiety with less reluctance than he took the first steps.
    --Atterbury.

  2. Resolute, in a good sense; or firm, unyielding quality; as, a man of sturdy piety or patriotism.

  3. Characterized by physical strength or force; strong; lusty; violent; as, a sturdy lout.

    How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
    --Gray.

  4. Stiff; stout; strong; as, a sturdy oak.
    --Milton.

    He was not of any delicate contexture; his limbs rather sturdy than dainty.
    --Sir H. Wotton.

    Syn: Hardy; stout; strong; firm; robust; stiff.

Sturdy

Sturdy \Stur"dy\, n. [OF. estourdi giddiness, stupefaction.] (Vet.) A disease in sheep and cattle, marked by great nervousness, or by dullness and stupor.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sturdy

c.1300, "hard to manage, reckless, violent," from Old French estordi (11c., Modern French étourdi) "violent," originally "dazed," past participle of estordiir "to daze, stun, stupefy," from Vulgar Latin *exturdire, which some presume to be from Latin intensive prefix ex- + turdus "thrush." Barnhart suggests the notion is of thrushes eating grape remnants at wineries and behaving as if drunk (Italian tordo "thrush" also means "simpleton," and French has the expression soûl comme une grive "drunk as a thrush"). OED, however, regards all this as "open to grave objection." Century Dictionary compares Latin torpidus "dull."\n

\nSense of "solidly built, strong and hardy" first recorded late 14c. Related: Sturdily; sturdiness. Sturdy-boots "obstinate person" is from 1762; a sturdy beggar in old language was one capable of work (c.1400).

Wiktionary
sturdy

a. 1 Of firm build; stiff; stout; strong. 2 Solid in structure or person. 3 (context obsolete English) Foolishly obstinate or resolute; stubborn. 4 Resolute, in a good sense; or firm, unyielding quality. n. A disease in sheep and cattle, marked by great nervousness, or by dullness and stupor.

WordNet
sturdy
  1. adj. having rugged physical strength; inured to fatigue or hardships; "hardy explorers of northern Canada"; "proud of her tall stalwart son"; "stout seamen"; "sturdy young athletes" [syn: hardy, stalwart, stout]

  2. substantially made or constructed; "sturdy steel shelves"; "sturdy canvas"; "a tough all-weather fabric"; "some plastics are as tough as metal" [syn: tough]

  3. [also: sturdiest, sturdier]

Wikipedia

Usage examples of "sturdy".

It was a broad-spread, rich alluvium superimposed upon earlier strata of immigration, out of which was to spring the sturdy growth of American Presbyterianism, as well as of other Christian organizations.

While the midget took her bows, Sir John lifted the dwarf horse off the platform and, unnoticed by the applauding crowd, set a sturdy wooden box up there behind Cricket and sprinkled on it some of his lycopodium.

Wide-framed and sturdy, he was attired in a well-worn cuirass, simple steel and oiled leather straps.

During that time Bray made enough tests, while maintaining his drunken appearance for the benefit of the guard, to establish that all the steel hard doors of the sturdy machine were locked.

I have pleased myself with considering it as a chosen spot, where the principles of sturdy John Bullism were garnered up, like seed corn, to renew the national character when it had run to waste and degeneracy.

There is something in the tone of those instructions of his to Sancho that evokes in one the image of an elderly, seedy, obscure poet, who has never been successful in anything, giving to his sturdy, popular, extravert son a sound bit of advice as to how to be a prosperous plumber or politician.

More than once he visited the locutories of nunneries, to deliver through the heavy gratings presents from Don Rafael to certain black and white shadows, which attracted by this sturdy young country boy, and aware that he meant to be a painter, overwhelmed him with the eager questions born of their seclusion.

The few open areas were nearly impassible with manzanita, a sturdy bush with tangled arms clothed in red bark and shining green leaves.

There was no movement among the coarse marram grass that grew thick and sturdy amongst the rocks on the beach, and the only sound above the waves was the hoarse squawking of the seabirds, intent upon finding their dinner.

I entered the carceral system at the age of fifteen, my parents having concluded that a night or two spent in the county lock-up might address my aggressive tendencies, I strived to present a sturdy, unglamorous presence among the mesomorphs, the skin artists and the flamboyantly hirsute.

Nothing in my experience intimated that such men now or ever had existed as other than a fiction, yet they embodied a principle of anonymity that spoke to my sense of style, and so when I entered the carceral system at the age of fifteen, my parents having concluded that a night or two spent in the county lock-up might address my aggressive tendencies, I strived to present a sturdy, unglamorous presence among the mesomorphs, the skin artists and the flamboyantly hirsute.

Within this educational greenhouse, Janie was not so much orchid as sturdy milkweed blossom.

In the corner of the basement farthest from the stairs, and from the cage of miscreations, stood a sturdy table draped with a blue velvet cloth.

A sturdy runner can outspeed them for a very little while, but the programmed are tireless.

But having been put up back during an era of overdesign, it proved to be sturdier than it looked, with its old stucco eaten at to reveal generations of paint jobs in different beach-town pastels, corroded by salt and petrochemical fogs that flowed in the summers onshore up the sand slopes, on up past Sepulveda, often across the then undeveloped fields, to wrap the San Diego Freeway too.