HARDSHIP
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Dictionary entry overview: What does hardship mean?
• HARDSHIP (noun)
The noun HARDSHIP has 3 senses:
1. a state of misfortune or affliction
2. something hard to endure
3. something that causes or entails suffering
Familiarity information: HARDSHIP used as a noun is uncommon.
Dictionary entry details
• HARDSHIP (noun)
Meaning:
A state of misfortune or affliction
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Synonyms:
adversity; hard knocks; hardship
Context examples:
debt-ridden farmers struggling with adversity / a life of hardship
Hypernyms ("hardship" is a kind of...):
bad luck; ill luck; misfortune; tough luck (an unfortunate state resulting from unfavorable outcomes)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hardship"):
ill-being (lack of prosperity or happiness or health)
catastrophe; disaster (a state of extreme (usually irremediable) ruin and misfortune)
extremity (an extreme condition or state (especially of adversity or disease))
distress (a state of adversity (danger or affliction or need))
affliction (a state of great suffering and distress due to adversity)
victimization (adversity resulting from being made a victim)
low-water mark; nadir (an extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything)
Meaning:
Something hard to endure
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Synonyms:
asperity; rigourousness; rigorousness; rigor; hardship; rigour; grimness; severeness; severity
Context example:
the asperity of northern winters
Hypernyms ("hardship" is a kind of...):
difficultness; difficulty (the quality of being difficult)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hardship"):
sternness (the quality (as of scenery) being grim and gloomy and forbidding)
Meaning:
Something that causes or entails suffering
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural events
Context examples:
I cannot think it a hardship that more indulgence is allowed to men than to women / the many hardships of frontier life
Hypernyms ("hardship" is a kind of...):
bad luck; misfortune (unnecessary and unforeseen trouble resulting from an unfortunate event)