hardscrabble
pronunciation
How to pronounce hardscrabble in British English:
UK [ˌhɑ:dˈskræbl]
How to pronounce hardscrabble in American English:
US [ˌhɑrdˈskræbl]
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- Adjective:
- yielding little by great labor
- of a bare living gained by great labor
Word Origin
- hardscrabble (n.)
- in popular use from c. 1826 as a U.S. colloquial name for any barren or impoverished place "where a livelihood may be obtained only under great hardship and difficulty" [OED]; from hard (adj.) + noun from scrabble (v.). Noted in 1813 as a place-name in New York state; first recorded in journals of Lewis and Clark (1804) as the name of a prairie. Perhaps the original notion was "vigorous effort made under great stress," though this sense is recorded slightly later (1812). As an adjective by 1845.
Example
- 1. A few days after the funeral , my dad and I played golf on spur 's hardscrabble course .
- 2. It was a hardscrabble oil boom in jingbian .
- 3. For those hardscrabble families , government subsidies no doubt would be welcomed .
- 4. He was born in the hardscrabble south . His father was a drunk who killed his own brother in a gunfight .
- 5. Yet the emerging picture is horrendous , especially for ordinary people in the lesser cities and hardscrabble northern provinces .