Wiktionary
a. To be in a situation that is difficult to resolve.
WordNet
adj. facing or experiencing financial trouble or difficulty; "the troubled car industry"; "distressed companies need loans and technical advice"; "financially hard-pressed Mexican hotels are lowering their prices"; "we were hard put to meet the mortgage paymentng"; "it was apparent that the magazine was in trouble"; "found themselves in a bad way financially" [syn: distressed, hard-pressed, in a bad way(p), in trouble(p)]
Usage examples of "hard put".
The registered doctors and surgeons were hard put to it to compete with the unregistered.
As a child and young adult, Kal-El must have been hard put to find an adequate father-figure.
Like the taming of fire, the taming of fusion will so change our way of life that our descendants a scarce century from now will be hard put to imagine how we could have lived without this ultimate energy source.
If it had entered his head to stir them up against our borders we might be hard put to it to defend ourselves against them on one side and Brocas on the other.
Charlie was hard put to answer the questions which poured over him.