• adj. 貧脊的；貧困的
• n. 貧瘠之農(nóng)地

hard,堅(jiān)硬的，艱苦的，scrabble,摸，找，掙扎。即貧瘠的土地上尋生計(jì)，土里刨食，引申詞義困難的，艱苦的。

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.