Idioms

content oneself with

content (oneself) with (someone or something)

To be happy or satisfied with something, often something that is lacking or disappointing in some way. In order to get health insurance, I had to abandon acting and content myself with a boring office job. If you're trying to save money, you'll need to content yourself with the clothes you already own. The kids have way too many toys as it is. They really need to content themselves with what they already have!
See also: content
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

content oneself with someone or something

to be satisfied with (usually less of) someone or something. You will just have to learn to content yourself with fewer nice vacations now that you have kids entering college.
See also: content
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in periodicals archive
Such a fantasy seems to acknowledge the impracticality of a physical entanglement--but also its conceivability--and the need to content oneself with a fantasy.
Shakespeare in love (the sequel)
There are however points in his argument where I would wish for greater theoretical sophistication: to content oneself with Giddens's definition of feminism as a 'politics of choice' is to assume a subjective agency that much feminist theory challenges, or at the very least explores.
The Radical Subject: social Change and the Self in Recent German Autobiography
What was needed was to "seek to improve the mother of the family by teaching the girls to become less idle and as a consequence better advisors than those today."(87) In response, the firm followed the same pedagogical strategy it had used with boys a half-century earlier: it introduced home economics programs [ecoles menageres] for schoolgirls in 1906 with the motto, "To know how to content oneself with little, there is wisdom and truth."(88)
Schools and the paternalist project at Le Creusot, 1850-1914
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