Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Earning a bare subsistence, as on the land; marginal: the sharecropper's hardscrabble life.
- n. Barren or marginal farmland.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to land that takes a lot of work in order to farm and even then is not very productive.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. barely satisfying a lower standard
Etymologies
- hard + scrabble (Wiktionary)
Examples
“I didn't really use the word hardscrabble, though.”
“It strikes as exceedingly odd that urban folk from the U.S. existing on social security benefits or estate incomes want to go and live in hardscrabble villages where people are eking out a living day to day so they can romp around in the bucolic quaintness the locals would give their eye teeth to escape.”
“In the midst of that the reviewer talks about the show's gritty 1980s Northern England setting, describing it as 'hardscrabble' - what a great word.”
“Oct. 12: 'Chronicles, Vol. 1': Bob Dylan's memoir (!) -- recalls his hardscrabble early days in the Village.”
“When described as hardscrabble (bare/impoverished) it does so in an inoffensive manner.”
“Picking through the past: Bluegrass master Ralph Stanley recalls his hardscrabble upbringing and a life in music in the memoir, "Man of Constant Sorrow.”
“With her portrayal of the thick-skinned Ree Dolly in "Winter's Bone," Lawrence gave us the kind of hardscrabble, nearly hard-as-nails teen girl we rarely see onscreen.”
“They are 'hardscrabble' (as Bubba might say) in that they are functional places for the poorer citizens of this fair town.”
“After recounting her 'hardscrabble' Texan childhood in Cherry, Karr continues the story of her life and battle with alcoholism in”
“She is going to obliterate Joey in spite of his "hardscrabble" upbringing (Democrat BS appeal) in Scranton.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hardscrabble’.
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Bike Snob'isms
words I saw while reading the Bike Snob
helment, scranus, podium, sangue borse, hipster, dandydom, effete, douchebag, douchebags, Lobweh, Portland, brakeless track bike and 328 more...
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not prime real estate
describing areas where the poor, unhomed and oppressed are found. Some of these didn't belong in miserable circumstances.
villa miseria, urban decay, urban blight, trailer park, township, tent city, Tenderloin, squalor, slurb, slum, skid row, sink of corruption and 35 more...
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RealLifePixel's Bad-Ass Words
Words so awesome they'll kick your eyeballs' asses!
cucurbitaceous, sacerdotal, loudhailer, bildungsroman, sublation, marmoreal, recusant, velleity, hardscrabble, malinger, miasma, brennschluss and 76 more...
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Crabby
Is it a crab? Does it have crab in its name? Does it contain the letters c-r-a-b (in that order)? Then list it!
crab, crabby, crabs, horseshoe crab, crabapple, crab grass, large crabgrass, crabgrass, Scrabble, hermit crab, king crab, robber crab and 46 more...
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jeffreytwhitney's list
abecedarian, assonance, prolix, avuncular, baleful, borborygmus, accismus, atavism, catachresis, coruscant, callipygian, carbuncle and 117 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, H
hurlyburly, hurtle, hodgepodge, heartwood, hatch, halo, hooptedoodle, hacienda, hairpin, heyday, hardscrabble, hopper and 208 more...
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Odd-Ball
Just plain fun to say and wonder about their origins.
rapscallion, ramahanukwanzmas, cockamamie, nincompoop, hemidemisemiquaver, antiinterdenomina..., cattywampus, ragamuffin, tatterdemalion, blunderbuss, brobdingnagian, tintinnabulation and 127 more...
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Oh them words, them words
My fancies, my cudgels.
liquescent, ferly, lamia, basilisk, trigon, fantast, stirp, tristesse, enfleurage, stemma, formicary, lacrimation and 346 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 887 more...
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Words of Whimsy & Grace
abecedary, addendum, ampersand, anachronism, avuncular, balderdash, barnacle, befuddle, behemoth, bejeebers, blabbermouth, blatherskite and 465 more...
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jimmynewland's Words
steganography, incunabulum, dog days, geekhood, risorgimento, ab initio, slugabed, humanism, diddly-squat, doch-an-dorris, snickersnee, rictus and 198 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
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Fun
harangue, quixotic, persnickety, lachrymose, kerfuffle, zephyr, chthonic, vixen, fiend, scoundrel, cricket, belfry and 193 more...
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vocab
numinous, gloze, diffident, soporific, lissome, rebarbative, trope, deliquesce, abjure, obdurate, pugilistic, puerile and 265 more...
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Dictionary.com Words of the Days of 2001
1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008
acclimate, stentorian, expeditious, proselytize, equable, sacrosanct, indefatigable, gravid, hyperbole, funereal, flibbertigibbet, vet and 353 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hardscrabble.
whichbe Earning a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty. (From WordCraft) May 20, 2008