Definition of "bruising"

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.

2022 November 21, Barney Ronay, “Iran’s brave and powerful gesture is a small wonder from a World Cup of woe”, in The Guardian‎

[…] 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.

1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, pages 251–252