harder-won

It would be hard to imagine a more proper location for ash trees than natural, temperate woodland, but foresters call them "weed trees" when they grow among more commercially desirable timber—and, perhaps, because the ash's effortless regenerative power puts in the shade the forester's harder-won achievements.

Why We Must Learn to Love Weeds Richard Mabey 2011

In some respects we can still see a typical "second-stage" recovery rally, where index gains are much harder-won than they were in the free-for-all of the first, which started back in March 2009.

No Good Greece News David Cottle 2010

Between the warring forces stood the Man of the Soil, puny, insignificant, matching his own hardly won and his forefather's harder-won knowledge against the elements; bending some to his advantage, minimizing the effects of others, openly defying those he could neither control nor avoid.

Desert Conquest or, Precious Waters 1916