Hardship

How to spell hardship

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hardship

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hardship mean?

1. nounSevere suffering, deprivation, or difficulty, often caused by a lack of money or harsh conditions.

Hardship in a sentence

• The long strike caused real financial hardship for many families.

• The charity offers grants to people facing genuine hardship.

Where does hardship come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Hardship is a thoroughly native English word, formed from the Old English adjective 'heard', meaning firm, severe, or difficult, combined with the suffix '-ship', which comes from Old English '-scipe' and denotes a state, quality, or condition (the same ending you see in friendship and ownership). The word is recorded from the early 1200s, originally carrying the sense of harsh or oppressive treatment before settling into its modern meaning of severe suffering or privation. The root 'heard' belongs to a wide Germanic family, with close cousins in the German 'hart' and the Dutch 'hard'. Because the word simply bolts two familiar English pieces together, its spelling holds no real surprises; the only point worth noting is that the 'd' of 'hard' and the 's' of 'ship' sit cleanly side by side with no letters added or dropped.

How the word is built

• hard (difficult, severe)
• -ship (noun suffix denoting a state or condition)