Hard-up, subs. (common).—1. A collector of cigar ends, a topper-hunter. [Which refuse, untwisted and chopped up, is sold to the very poor. ] Sometimes Hard-cut. Fr., un mégottier.
1851-61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., p. 5. The cigar-end finders, or hard-ups, as they are called, who collect the refuse pieces of smoked cigars from the gutters, and having dried them, sell them as tobacco to the very poor.
1888. Tit Bits, 24 March, 373. Smoking hard-up is picking up the stumps of cigars thrown away in the streets, cutting them up, and smoking them in the pipe.
1891. Morning Advertiser, 26 Mar. A constable on duty on the Embankment early in the morning saw the accused prowling about, and on asking what he was doing, received the reply that he was looking for hard cut.—Mr. Vaughan: Looking for what?—The Prisoner: Hard-cut; dropped cigar-ends.
2. (common).—A poor man; a stony-broke (q.v.).
1857. Ducange Anglicus, Vulg. Tongue. Hard-up, a poor person.
Adv. phr. (colloquial).—1. Very badly in want of money; in urgent need of anything. Also Hard-run and Hard-pushed.
1809-41. Th. Hook, The Sutherlands. He returned, and being hard up, as we say, took it into his head to break a shop-window at Liverpool, and take out some trumpery trinket stuff.
1821. Haggart, Life, p. 104. There I met in with two Edinburgh snibs, who were hard up.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, 'Merchant of Venice.' Who by showing at Operas, Balls, Plays, and Court,. . . Had shrunk his 'weak means,' and was 'stump'd' and hard up.
1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xi. He . . . was, not to put too fine a point upon it hard-up.
1865. New York Herald. This anxiety . . . shows conclusively that they are hard-up for political capital.
1871. Lond. Figaro, 25 Jan. For years, England has been a refuge for hard-up German princelings.
1887. Manville Fenn, This Man's Wife, i., 13. I don't look hard up do I? No, because you've spent my money on your wretched dress.
1891. Fun, 25 Mar. You're hard up, ain't you? Stumped? Well, it's Threadneedle Street to a frying-pan, that if Popsy knew your real name, he'd lend you a thousand or two like a shot.
English Synonyms.—Many under floored apply equally to hard-up; others are:—At low water mark; cracked up; dead-broke; down on one's luck; fast; in Queer Street; in the last of pea time; in the last run of shad; low down; low in the lay; oofless; out of favor with the oof-bird; pebble-beached; seedy; short; sold-up; stony-broke; strapped; stuck; stumped; suffering from an attack of the week's (or month's) end; tight; on one's uppers; under a cloud; on one's beam ends.
French Synonyms.—Se mettre dans le bœuf (common = to go in for block ornaments (q.v.)); être en brindezingue (mountebanks = gone to smash); être brouillé avec la monnaie (familiar = to have had a row with one's banker); être coupé (printers'); être a la côte (familiar = on the shelf); être fauché (thieves' = cut down); être dans la purée (thieves'); être molle (thieves'); être à la faridon (popular); être en dèche (popular); être désargenté (thieves' = oofless); être bref (popular = short); être à fond de cale (popular = down to bed-rock); être à la manque (popular = on short commons); manger de la misère (popular = to sup sorrow); être dans le lac (popular = a hole); être pané (general); panné comme la Hollande (general = very hard up).
