hardscrabble

• adj. 贫脊的；贫困的
• n. 贫瘠之农地

hard,坚硬的，艰苦的，scrabble,摸，找，挣扎。即贫瘠的土地上寻生计，土里刨食，引申词义困难的，艰苦的。

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.