i Register
In some senses, bruising is marked as slang. Watch for register when choosing this word.
adj
That bruises.
Wearisome, arduous.
Instead England produced something that felt a little transgressive in this most controlled of stages, tightening their grip in a bruising first half, before freewheeling downhill in the second with their feet up on the handlebars.
noun
A violent physical attack on a person.
You'd better shut up or you'll get a bruising.
Bruises on a person's skin.
[…] on October 29, 1888, the Russian imperial train was derailed at Borki by defective track, and twenty-one persons were killed. Although these did not include the Emperor Alexander III, who escaped with a bruising, a footman serving coffee to him at the critical moment, and his dog, which was lying on the floor beside him, were both killed on the spot.