Meaning
A difficult, demanding task or dispiriting set of circumstances to get through; the underlying farming image is hand-hoeing a long crop row that is rocky, weedy, or stubborn. American English, somewhat informal and often with a rural flavor. Informal and sympathetic; stresses grinding difficulty rather than impossibility. Regional use: American English.
Origin
An American agricultural metaphor: before mechanization, hoeing long rows of corn or cotton by hand was backbreaking work, and the worst rows were the long, stony, or weed-choked ones. The documented record is early: the OED's first citation, quoted by Grammarphobia, is from the New-York Spectator of March 24, 1810 ('True, we have a hard row to hoe...'), Davy Crockett used it in his 1835 Tour to the North and Down East, and the OED records tough, hard, long, and difficult variants. The misheard form 'a hard road to hoe' is an eggcorn - one hoes a row of crops, not a road - and it turns up surprisingly often, especially in sports writing; the earliest example of the 'road' spelling that Grammarphobia found is from Boston's Daily Atlas of December 3, 1842.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a hard road to hoe
- a long row to hoe
- a tough row to hoe
- quite a row to hoe
Usage Examples
- Rebuilding trust with the regulators after the scandal will be a hard row to hoe.
- Small clinics in remote districts have a tougher row to hoe than urban hospitals when recruiting staff.
- She knew that clearing her father's debts would be a long row to hoe.