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
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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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 44 more...
whichbe Earning a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty. (From WordCraft) May 20, 2008