as in desolate
producing inferior or only a small amount of vegetation
it was hard to eke out even a bare existence on the hardscrabble lands
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Recent Examples of hardscrabble
And plenty of fans are furious that Childers has embraced studio bells and whistles — there’s vocoder and drum loops on some songs — and is no longer singing exclusively about hardscrabble Appalachian life à la his 2017 debut Purgatory.
—
Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 4 Aug. 2025
The frontline feels like a giant game of Pac-Man as Russians try to gobble up remote agrarian villages where hardscrabble families eke out a desperate living.
—Susan Mathison, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 July 2025
The protagonist, a woman named Dawn Bishop, is from a wealthy white family: their money hasn't come from colonial days, but from their hardscrabble beginnings running a company that makes and exports tropical fruit juices.
—Claire Adam, People.com, 28 July 2025
On the one hand, as Tevye is fond of saying, the story unfolds in a hardscrabble shtetl in the Ukrainian plains in the months leading up to the Russian Empire’s abortive 1905 revolution.
—David Lyman, The Enquirer, 25 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for hardscrabble
Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 4 Aug. 2025
The frontline feels like a giant game of Pac-Man as Russians try to gobble up remote agrarian villages where hardscrabble families eke out a desperate living.
—Susan Mathison, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 July 2025
The protagonist, a woman named Dawn Bishop, is from a wealthy white family: their money hasn't come from colonial days, but from their hardscrabble beginnings running a company that makes and exports tropical fruit juices.
—Claire Adam, People.com, 28 July 2025
On the one hand, as Tevye is fond of saying, the story unfolds in a hardscrabble shtetl in the Ukrainian plains in the months leading up to the Russian Empire’s abortive 1905 revolution.
—David Lyman, The Enquirer, 25 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for hardscrabble
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hardscrabble
Adjective
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The first fires tore across humble, pioneering patches of plant life no taller than your ankle, as well as burning through rather more astonishing, and truly bizarre, 25-foot columns of fungus that briefly held sway on this desolate world before trees.—
Peter Brannen,
Big Think,
28 Aug. 2025
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Restaurants provided a beacon of hope at a time when the landscape was desolate.—
Beth D'Addono,
Southern Living,
28 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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Murral’s life began in Forest, a small, impoverished town in Mississippi aptly named; there were, and still are, more trees than people there.—
Sarah Rex,
JSTOR Daily,
20 Aug. 2025
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Many people, especially those of us raised in impoverished (in the widest sense of the word) environments, spend their twenties banging their heads against a wall.—
Jane Ciabattari
August 19,
Literary Hub,
19 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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Those fleeting, vibrant days are the perfect time for hiking through a mix of wooded mountainside, barren volcanic landscapes, and marshland, with stops at some of Japan’s most rustic hot springs.—
Rob Goss,
AFAR Media,
26 Aug. 2025
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By injecting concentrated algae into soil through local irrigation systems, the company revives barren land into fertile ground.—
Afdhel Aziz,
Forbes.com,
25 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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In the 1970s, science fiction took a decidedly bleak turn in parallel with the changing shape of global politics and public opinion.—
Nick Foster
August 26,
Literary Hub,
26 Aug. 2025
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This administration’s notion is something bleaker—that the country should simply care less.—
Lois Parshley,
The Atlantic,
25 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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These places are away from the public eye, but can put people in harm's way due to floodplains, poor quality water and exposure to the elements.—
Gina Lee Castro,
jsonline.com,
30 Aug. 2025
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It has been tagged as a giveaway to rich elites, and the administration is tapping a vice president who grew up poor in Middletown to turn public perception.—
Francesca Chambers,
The Enquirer,
30 Aug. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Hardscrabble.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hardscrabble. Accessed 5 Sep. 2025.
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