Uitgeharde

Uitgeharde is a Dutch adjective that describes something that has completed the process of hardening. It comes from the verb uitharden, meaning to harden completely or to reach maximum hardness. The term is used across disciplines to indicate the final state after a hardening or curing process, without specifying the exact method used.

Applications of the term appear in several fields. In metallurgy, uitgeharde staalsoorten refer to steels that have been hardened by heat treatment (such as quenching and tempering) to achieve higher hardness and wear resistance. In polymers and adhesives, uitgeharde resins have cured fully, with cross-linking providing rigidity and chemical resistance. In construction and materials science, concretes, coatings, and composites may be described as uitgehard once their setting and strength development have progressed to a specified level. In everyday language, the word can also describe people who are toughened by experience: een uitgeharde reiziger or een uitgeharde politieman.

Grammatical notes: uitgeharde is the feminine singular or plural form of the past participle of uitharden used as an adjective; it can be used predicatively (het oppervlak is uitgehard) or attributively (de uitgeharde staalsoort). The base form for masculine or neuter nouns is uitgehard. The term thus denotes the end state after a hardening process, whether in materials, coatings, or metaphorical usage.