hard up

Hard up as we are for shell he thinks it best to blaze it away freely before closing and to trust our bayonets when we get in.

They were regularly hard up, and went through no end of trouble.

Haydon, hard up, as usual, went to Kensington to ask his friend for the loan of £5. '

Their salesmen are on the road trying to sell tin plate, but the tinners are so hard up that few of them can buy.

She told me she bought it from a Japanese acrobat who was out of an engagement and desperately hard up.