hard up
10
8.0
- idiom
- /hɑrd ʌp/
- Informal
:
sin dinero
- After losing his job, he realized he was hard up and needed to cut back on expenses.
- hard up for cash
- hard up for money
- so hard up
Did your dad film porno films because he was hard up?
- Did your dad film porno films because he was hard up?
- Like we weren't hard, hard up, but we weren't rich.
Examples
-
"I never was so hard up in my life," he admitted.
Academic text (2009) -
Ruth's Uncle Len, always hard up for money, would take any job.
Fiction book (2000) -
I happen to be more than usually hard up.
-
That shows how hard up they are for something to print.
-
You must be real hard up.
-
I am not hard up whatsoever and I really mean that.
-
I would love to, but I'm hard up at the moment.
-
I know you're hard up.
-
My route takes me to the more hard-up places in town, and the kids are always waiting, always hungry.
Fiction book (2001) -
You're not the only one that's hard up around here.
Synonyms
33
6.0
Short of money or resources and finding things difficult
24
4.3
Having no money
1
9.9
Having little or no money
1
9.9
Very poor and unable to pay for basic needs
A person who has little money to pay basic costs
A person who has little money and cannot buy basic things
Being very short of money and struggling to pay for things
Antonyms
How Poor
Surface Forms
Morphology
hard + up
While 'hard' implies difficulty and 'up' can mark a state, the phrase's precise meaning 'short of money' is a conventionalized, partly metaphorical extension rather than a straightforward composition of the parts. A B1 learner who knows the constituents might infer a general problem or difficulty but would be unlikely to predict the specific financial sense without prior exposure, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Hard up may come from the image of someone pressed up against something hard, with no room to move, like being stuck in a tight place; that push of being trapped helps explain the feeling of not having resources. So hard up means 'having very little money'.