hardscrabble
Americanadjective
noun
-
(modifier) (of a place) difficult to make a living in; barren
-
great effort made in the face of difficulties
Etymology
Origin of hardscrabble
Explanation
Something described as hardscrabble is difficult and challenging. Many people overcome a hardscrabble childhood and go on to achieve their dreams. During an economic depression, many people's lives become hardscrabble, as they fight to find work, or are unable to pay their bills without working two or three jobs. This sense of struggling just to metaphorically keep your head above water captures the meaning of hardscrabble. It's an early 19th-century coinage, first written in Lewis and Clark's journals, and referring to an imaginary place "where a livelihood may be obtained only under great hardship and difficulty."
Vocabulary lists containing hardscrabble
Life Is So Good
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Last Night at the Telegraph Club
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The Testaments
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The region's hardscrabble existence is perhaps best illustrated in Dollywood's full-size replica of the humble two-room log cabin where Parton grew up with her 11 brothers and sisters in Locust Ridge, outside Sevierville.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
But he behaved as if he’d spent a childhood surviving hardscrabble East Coast streets and was scornful of bourgeois diction.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
With the sun setting, he leads his team into a hardscrabble neighbourhood where windows are sealed off behind metal grills, and lips are sealed by fear.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
The daughter of a traveling salesman, Flores grew up modestly in the cinder block hills of Catia, a hardscrabble district of western Caracas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026
Now, it is time for me to hang up my crown as Manifest Huckleberry Queen of 1917 and trade it for the hardscrabble life of a journalist.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
