hardscrabble

American  

[hahrd-skrab-uhl] / ˈhɑrdˌskræb əl /

adjective

1. providing or yielding meagerly in return for much effort; demanding or unrewarding.

   the hardscrabble existence of mountainside farmers.

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hardscrabble British  

/ ˈhɑːdˌskræbəl /

noun

1. (modifier) (of a place) difficult to make a living in; barren

2. great effort made in the face of difficulties

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Etymology

Origin of hardscrabble

An Americanism dating back to 1795–1805; hard + scrabble

Example Sentences

Ms. Iturbide’s most well-known image shows a woman with flowing waist-length hair and billowing skirts looming above a hardscrabble landscape, a modern boombox clutched in her right hand.

From The Wall Street Journal

It is also tapping a growing pool of reservists to replenish its ranks, and doling out financial incentives that lure men from its hardscrabble provinces.

From The Wall Street Journal

Mom was the youngest of 10 kids and grew up hardscrabble.

From The Wall Street Journal

Patti Smith, the celebrated rock poet who won a National Book Award for ‘Just Kids,’ revisits her hardscrabble childhood, success and the loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith, in ‘Bread of Angels.’

From Los Angeles Times

She married that expertise with the kind of hardscrabble, up-by-her-bootstraps backstory that a calculating political consultant might have spun from whole cloth, had it not been so.

From Los Angeles Times