hard up


In need, poor, as in Unemployment is rising and many families are hard up, or With widespread emigration, Russia is finding itself hard up for scientists and other professional people. [Colloquial; early 1800s]

Words Nearby hard up

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use hard up in a sentence

  • hard up as we are for shell he thinks it best to blaze it away freely before closing and to trust our bayonets when we get in.

  • They were regularly hard up, and went through no end of trouble.

    A Houseful of Girls | Sarah Tytler
  • Haydon, hard up, as usual, went to Kensington to ask his friend for the loan of £5. '

  • Their salesmen are on the road trying to sell tin plate, but the tinners are so hard up that few of them can buy.

    The Iron Puddler | James J. Davis
  • She told me she bought it from a Japanese acrobat who was out of an engagement and desperately hard up.

    Tales of Fantasy and Fact | Brander Matthews