English · Slang Historical

hard-up

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

A cigar-end finder, who collects the refuse pieces of smoked cigars from the gutter, and having dried them, smokes them, or sells them as tobacco to the very poor. See TOPPER.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Người thu thập và bán đầu thuốc lá đã hút

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1874 (Victorian)

Where it’s used: Origin British & Irish English

Sources & notes

Historical definition reproduced from Hotten’s The Slang Dictionary (1874, public domain; Project Gutenberg #42108, retrieved 2026-07-31). Reflects the attitudes of its era.

Topics: Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “hard-up” mean?

A cigar-end finder, who collects the refuse pieces of smoked cigars from the gutter, and having dried them, smokes them, or sells them as tobacco to the very poor. See TOPPER.

Is “hard-up” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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