A portrait of the hard-scrabble life moving and deftly told.    From Wordnik.com.  [Going To Bend: Summary and book reviews of Going To Bend by Diane Hammond.] Reference

But it's a hard-scrabble life, fraught with potential danger.    From Wordnik.com.  [Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: Biutiful] Reference

See his evocative defense of the hard-scrabble life of blue-collar workers.    From Wordnik.com.  [Dan Sweeney: Lou Reed for Senate] Reference

Her family enduring the hard-scrabble days of the Depression and World War II.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Jan 17, 2007] Reference

If you like the hard-scrabble life, go nuts. posted by MN Politics Guru @ 19:23.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2006-03-01] Reference

The hard-scrabble daily existence of the characters was captivating and engrossing.    From Wordnik.com.  [Advance reader reviews of Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn D. Wall.] Reference

He relates to Mr. Huckabee's hard-scrabble life story, recounted at each campaign stop.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Spirit Behind Huckabee's] Reference

She gave off the aura of aristocracy that the hard-scrabble Harding so obviously lacked.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-04-01] Reference

He is hard-scrabble hill all the way, scratching and clawing up the Family Worship trail.    From Wordnik.com.  [Church Going] Reference

By any measure, his is not a particularly hard-scrabble, up-by-the-bootstraps kind of story.    From Wordnik.com.  [What's eating Charlie Baker?] Reference

As an infant, he lost his father, resulting in a hard-scrabble childhood on the family farm.    From Wordnik.com.  [Phil Ramone and Danielle Evin: Dog Ears Music: Volume Ninety-Seven] Reference

This is the Cite Soleil, a slum area down here by the docks, just -- I mean, really hard-scrabble area.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Jan 13, 2010] Reference

The women turn their nose up at her (and these are the hard-scrabble types Sarah's supposed to appeal to).    From Wordnik.com.  [Fred Graver: Knocking on Ohio's Door -- My Amazing Weekend] Reference

Bob Palmer, Chuck Vervalin, Tim McCoy, and Gordy Cox lived hard-scrabble lives growing up in the Depression.    From Wordnik.com.  ['No Ordinary Joes' Tells Stories Of Love And War] Reference

I'm a hard-scrabble orphan and everything I have, I got by the hardest, most persistentwork that I could do.    From Wordnik.com.  [False Accusations of Rape] Reference

Parties to launch first novels are often hard-scrabble affairs in spartan settings serving inexpensive wine.    From Wordnik.com.  [Uptown Girl Turns Writer About Town] Reference

Pennsylvania, the hard-scrabble farms of the southern coastal plains, and the unlimited frontiers of America.    From Wordnik.com.  [1976 Democratic National Convention Acceptance Address] Reference

There is the beauty of Clara's compassion for Julia and Olga, who would both lead limited, hard-scrabble lives.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lindsay Edmunds: Susan Vreeland Brings to Light a Talented Artist and a Vibrant Time] Reference

He was just a kid, too; didn't even make it to fifty but that hard-scrabble lookin' pic with the cig says it all.    From Wordnik.com.  [Perhaps my favorite ...] Reference

Angus comes from hard-scrabble Oakland, from a fenced-in house on a tiny triangle of space between two busy streets.    From Wordnik.com.  [Angus of Dog] Reference

Belly managed to escape hard-scrabble Ottawa neighbourhoods like Ledbury, moving out to the country for a peaceful life.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-08-01] Reference

The movement was able to rally a huge following of hard-scrabble farmers and put-upon workers because it did not pussyfoot around.    From Wordnik.com.  [Jim Hightower: Populism Is Not A Style] Reference

As a result, he was able to peel off some of the most rugged, hard-scrabble voters in America, against their own economic interests.    From Wordnik.com.  [Maureen Dowd Devotes Whole Column To Edwards' Hair] Reference

She did prize the moment, though, snatched from a hard-scrabble life of keeping peace in her man's bed and her child from ending up like herself.    From Wordnik.com.  [Murder by Six]

He shows us their hard-scrabble past, the banal beginnings of their banking deals, their brotherly chemistry and competitiveness that got out of hand.    From Wordnik.com.  ['It could've been all different, Jack... You got to believe that'] Reference

See the hard-scrabble life of a slave's grandson ».    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN.com] Reference

In the end, coal drives fate in this hard-scrabble region.    From Wordnik.com.  [Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph] Reference

Fujikawa is revered on this island for his hard-scrabble upbringing.    From Wordnik.com.  [Yahoo! Sports - Top News] Reference

He is a man of humble and hard-scrabble beginnings, raised by a single mother.    From Wordnik.com.  [Workers Comp Insider] Reference

Not many Hahvard grads in our rank and file, mostly Howard Fast hard-scrabble types.    From Wordnik.com.  [WHAT REALLY HAPPENED] Reference

But the struggling orchestra in the hard-scrabble northern B.C. town refused to die.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed] Reference

Central Area, which includes the hard-scrabble Skid Row district on the edge of Downtown.    From Wordnik.com.  [news.newamericamedia.org] Reference

The money was much better than on the hard-scrabble farms, but this again represented a fall in social status.    From Wordnik.com.  [Conservapedia - Recent changes [en]] Reference

Now she's hard-scrabble Ma Ingalls in a musical based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's children's books about a pioneer family.    From Wordnik.com.  [chron.com Chronicle] Reference

She said most of her dancer friends now run food stands or clothing stalls in Mexico City's hard-scrabble Tepito district.    From Wordnik.com.  [daytondailynews.com - News] Reference

Neal Cassady, Kerouac's and Ginsberg's muse for their early works, even came from a hard-scrabble background of a drunk and abusive father.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Razor] Reference