Having very little money; in financial difficulty.
Not having enough money; being poor or in financial trouble.
2 meanings, ordered from most common to least. Color-coded by CEFR level.
Lacking enough money; experiencing financial hardship.
"We were quite hard up when the children were young, so holidays were a rare luxury."
I was hard up, really hard up, and I didn't know what I was going to do.
— George Orwell, 'Down and Out in Paris and London', 1933
Lacking or desperate for something other than money (usually followed by 'for').
"The screenwriters must have been really hard up for material to recycle that old storyline."
Used as a predicative adjective (after 'be'). Primarily British English. Can also be used more broadly to mean lacking something (e.g. 'hard up for ideas'), though the financial sense is most common. Generally implies a temporary or situational condition rather than extreme poverty.
Natural word combinations native speakers use most often.
The five tense forms you'll use most often.
Listen to native speakers using "hard up" in real YouTube videos — click a clip to watch it on Looplines.
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