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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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of hardscrabble
Waukegan is counting on the project to boost its downtown economy, but this hardscrabble city will have to wait at least a couple more years for a grand opening.
—
The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 25 Feb. 2025
Commoners could look forward to a paltry thirty-five or forty years of a hardscrabble existence, without the benefit of medicine, dentistry, or a decent sewage system.
—Arthur Krystal, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2025
Grant Leonard, Queens’ 43-year-old head coach, had a hardscrabble existence on the fringes of college basketball for the first decade of his career.
—Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer, 24 Jan. 2025
Saturday’s hardwood Egg Bowl was hardscrabble and a game of the year contender, with Mississippi State pulling the 84-81 overtime win.
—Steven Louis Goldstein, The Athletic, 21 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hardscrabble
The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 25 Feb. 2025
Commoners could look forward to a paltry thirty-five or forty years of a hardscrabble existence, without the benefit of medicine, dentistry, or a decent sewage system.
—Arthur Krystal, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2025
Grant Leonard, Queens’ 43-year-old head coach, had a hardscrabble existence on the fringes of college basketball for the first decade of his career.
—Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer, 24 Jan. 2025
Saturday’s hardwood Egg Bowl was hardscrabble and a game of the year contender, with Mississippi State pulling the 84-81 overtime win.
—Steven Louis Goldstein, The Athletic, 21 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hardscrabble
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hardscrabble
Adjective
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The location is on federal land just north of the U.S.-Mexico border along a desolate stretch of the Sonoran Desert about 72 miles south-southwest of Tucson.—
Doha Madani,
NBC news,
5 May 2025
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Even the trailers for Superman have echos of the Man of Steel and Batman v Superman trailers, including starting with Superman falling out of the sky into a desolate Arctic area.—
Mark Hughes,
Forbes.com,
26 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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Eagerly drinking the Kool-Aid is Simone DeWitt (Alcock), a formerly impoverished but deeply ambitious upstart from Buffalo who gets a taste of the lifestyle of the rich and famous as Michaela's uppity assistant.—
Kelly Lawler,
USA Today,
23 May 2025
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His father, a Presbyterian minister, was the executive director of the New York City Mission Society, a social-services nonprofit for impoverished children.—
Dwight Garner,
New York Times,
19 May 2025
Adjective
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The festival was deliberately planned for the barren weeks in June after college students left and before the summer concert and festival season kicked in.—
Christopher Arnott,
Hartford Courant,
25 May 2025
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The Bureau’s new research station on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, with its high altitude and barren landscape, would prove to be the ideal collection spot.—
Ashley Braun,
Smithsonian Magazine,
19 May 2025
Adjective
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The latest Email Threat Trends Report from VIPRE paints a bleak picture.—
Zak Doffman,
Forbes.com,
20 May 2025
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Related article Putin just called Trump’s bluff on Ukraine, with the Russian art of the ‘no’ deal Ukraine in 2025 is a bleak prospect.—
Nick Paton Walsh,
CNN Money,
19 May 2025
Adjective
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The product was released in 2023 to a poor reception, and discontinued before the company began winding down operations in February.—
Tom Huddleston Jr.,
CNBC,
24 May 2025
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The original doesn’t go that deeply into it, but this poor girl was essentially forced to be a teen mom at this time in her life when all of her friends would be graduating high school and dating and thinking about their futures.—
Patrick Ryan,
USA Today,
24 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Hardscrabble.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hardscrabble. Accessed 1 Jun. 2025.
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