noun
- a condition that is difficult to endure; suffering; deprivation; oppression: a life of hardship.
- an instance or cause of this; something hard to bear, as a deprivation, lack of comfort, or constant toil or danger: They faced bravely the many hardships of frontier life.
noun
- conditions of life difficult to endure
- something that causes suffering or privation
c.1200, “quality of being hard,” from hard + -ship. Meaning “disadvantage, suffering, privation” is c.1400.