[hahrd-skrab-uh
l] 
| providing or yielding meagerly in return for much effort; demanding or unrewarding: the hardscrabble existence of mountainside farmers. |
| hard·scrab·ble (härd'skrāb'əl) adj. Earning a bare subsistence, as on the land; marginal: the sharecropper's hardscrabble life. n. Barren or marginal farmland. |