Online Google Dictionary

hard up wordnet sense
  1. not having enough money to pay for necessities
  2. Lacking money, impecunious, in financial difficulties
  3. Hard is another often used nautical term. To put the helm hard over is to put it as far as it will go in that direction. Hard and fast describes a vessel firmly aground and unable to make progress and has come ashore to mean rigid. ...
  4. To move the tiller hard to weather.