Word.ws English Dictionary

hard-up

hard-up is the alternative form of hard up.

Meaning of hard up

Adjective

hard up (comparative more hard up, superlative most hard up)

  1. (colloquial) Lacking money; impecunious; in financial difficulties.
    • I can speak with authority on the subject of being hard up. I have been a provincial actor. If further evidence be required, which I do not think likely, […]1886, Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, On being hard up
  2. (colloquial) Lacking anything.
    • We were hard up for amusements.
  3. (broadly, colloquial) Desperate.
    • Dating him? She must be hard up.

See all 4 meanings of hard up

Forms of hard-up

comparativemore hard-up
superlativemost hard-up

Questions about hard-up

What is hard-up the alternative form of?
Hard-up is the alternative form of hard up.

Words near hard-up in the dictionary

  1. hard-stops
  2. hard-ticket
  3. hard-times token
  4. hard-times tokens
  5. hard-to-get
  6. hard-up
  7. hard-water
  8. hard-wearing
  9. hard-wire
  10. hard-wired
  11. hard-wires

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hard-up (page history and authors); hard up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “hard-up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hard-up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.