Robust to/ against [closed]

Which preposition should be used with 'robust'?
I want to say e.g.:

This material is robust against/to (??) environmental influence.

Is there, if robust is not the right word in this context, an alternative to say that (e.g. stable (to/against)?)

Solution 1:

I do not recall ever seeing robust used in quite that way, and a quick search through the many different senses of the word in the OED did not reveal any use of robust with a preposition.

The word, originating from the French robuste has been around in English since at least the fourteenth century. But a few recent examples quoted of its use when speaking of material objects are as follows;

1882 Macmillan's Mag. Apr. 430/2 The room in which they found themselves, though clean, and neatly furnished with robust oaken furniture, bore symptoms of unwonted disorder.

1946 V. N. Wood Metall. Materials i. 36 (heading) The whole is encased in a robust steel shell.

1961 P. J. Bhatt Fund. Servo Control Engin. 58 Magnetic amplifiers and transducers are static robust units which can be conveniently mounted (e.g., astride the driving motor).

1988 Jrnl. Navigation 41 330 The compass..was a simple, robust instrument with a large steering prism.

2007 Trail Feb. 76/3 This robust accessory keeps my four mugs-worth of water piping for nine hours.

The point is that robust is not a word which conveys much other than strength. What you need to do is to express in what sense it is strong against environmental influences. This could be; this material is robustly resistant to environmental influences, but it could equally well be that this material is robustly enhancing of environmental influences - perhaps a trifle unlikely, but I feel sure that examples could be conjured where the word robust could act as a qualifier for two entirely opposite reasons.

The point I am making is that robust against, without a further adjective is a rather limp expression.

Solution 2:

A great resource open to you for looking at the frequency of words or phrases is Google Ngram Viewer.
This Ngrams analysis answers the question quite well: