單詞
hardscrabble
英 [hɑ?d'skr?bl]
基本信息
- adj. 貧脊的;貧困的
- n. 貧瘠之農(nóng)地
中文詞源
hardscrabble 困難的,貧困的
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。
英文詞源
- 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.
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