Sentence:  We turned onto a gravel road to a place called Honeywell, a heap of run-down houses, bird dogs and beagle hounds staked and chained in <WSD>scrabbly</WSD> yards, rows of mailboxes nailed to posts along the road, a lot of them with their lids hanging open. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Impoverished, hardscrabble