hardship

American  

[hahrd-ship] / ˈhɑrd ʃɪp /

noun

• hardships
  plural

1. a condition that is difficult to endure; suffering; deprivation; oppression.

   a life of hardship.

   Synonyms:

   misfortune, suffering, affliction, trouble

   Antonyms:

   ease

2. an instance or cause of this; something hard to bear, as a deprivation, lack of comfort, or constant toil or danger.

   They faced bravely the many hardships of frontier life.

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hardship British  

/ ˈhɑːdʃɪp /

noun

1. conditions of life difficult to endure

2. something that causes suffering or privation

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Synonym Usage

Hardship, privation, austerity refer to a condition hard to endure. Hardship applies to a circumstance in which excessive and painful effort of some kind is required, as enduring acute discomfort from cold, or battling over rough terrain. Privation has particular reference to lack of food, clothing, and other necessities or comforts. Austerity not only includes the ideas of privation and hardship but also implies deliberate control of emotional reactions to these.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• hardships
  plural

Etymology

Origin of hardship

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English; hard + -ship

Explanation

If something is a hardship, it causes suffering or unpleasantness. After all the hardship you endured while training for the marathon, you really hope that you’ll do well — or at least finish! The word hard in hardship is a tip-off to its meaning: something that’s a hardship is hard. It could be hard work that you do for a larger goal — like training for the marathon — or it could be a situation that’s hard to endure. If you lose your job, you could end up experiencing financial hardship. Sometimes a hardship is something that just happens, like the hardship people suffer following a disaster.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hardship hardships

Poole González captured resilience in the face of hardship: A man showering outside in a rainstorm.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

Padilla of Public Works acknowledged the hardship, but said the benefits would outweigh the short-term pain.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026

"We see people's health being damaged and their ability to find and maintain work undermined by the severe hardship so many are facing."

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

If she did receive an overpayment but can’t afford to repay it, she can request a waiver on grounds of hardship or fairness.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

To save my sanity, I learned to pad around hardship in soft slippers and try to remark on its good points.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

There were hardships and traumas, periods of institutionalization.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026

"People are so overwhelmed by poverty and daily hardships that many have been forced to put their education, dreams, and hopes for the future aside," Ela from Kabul said.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

For many, today's hardships only serve to highlight the absence of a leader who died a decade ago and is still seen as the wiley strategist who outwitted his American foes.

From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026

And he is attentive to the hardships of these people’s lives, from the scant public transit options in America’s rural precincts to the need for supportive housing.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

We stayed in the Fort for two weeks, and despite the hardships, our spirits remained extremely high.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

Related Words

• adversity
• calamity
• catastrophe
• danger
• difficulty
• disaster
• discomfort
• fatigue
• grief
• hazard
• injury
• misery
• misfortune
• oppression
• peril
• persecution
• sorrow
• suffering
• torment
• trouble