hardscrabble

adj.

Earning a bare subsistence, as on the land; marginal: the sharecropper's hardscrabble life.

n.

Barren or marginal farmland.

1) being or relating to a piece of barren or barely arable soil
2) marked by poverty

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The adjective has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: yielding little by great labor
  Synonym: poor

Meaning #2: of a bare living gained by great labor
  Synonym: marginal

---