live from hand to mouth

(redirected from lived from hand to mouth)

live from hand to mouth

To be extremely poor, having only enough money to provide food and shelter each month. I had to live from hand to mouth during most of college, since I could only get part-time jobs that paid minimum wage.

live from hand to mouth

Fig. to live in poor circumstances. When both my parents were out of work, we lived from hand to mouth. We lived from hand to mouth during the war. Things were very difficult.

live from hand to mouth

live hand-to-mouth

COMMON Someone who lives from hand to mouth or lives hand-to-mouth always struggles to afford the things they need. I have a wife and two children and we live from hand to mouth on what I earn. I just can't live hand-to-mouth, it's too frightening. Note: Hand-to-mouth is also used before nouns to describe a situation where someone struggles to afford what they need. Unloved and uncared-for, they live a meaningless hand-to-mouth existence.

hand to mouth, exist/live from

Living with a minimum of sustenance or support. This term, which dates from about 1500, implies that one has so little to live on that whatever comes to hand is consumed. “I subsist, as the poor are vulgarly said to do, from hand to mouth,” wrote the poet William Cowper (1790).

See also: exist, hand, live, to

See also:

References in classic literature ?

That his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these things was a solution that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to me: "Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you a life that's so unnatural for a boy." What was so unnatural for the particular boy I was concerned with was this sudden revelation of a consciousness and a plan.

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He knew besides that the Athelnys lived from hand to mouth, and with their large family had neither space nor money to entertain a stranger.

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Month after month, the little Bell Company lived from hand to mouth. No salaries were paid in full.

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According to her, Kayode cared less about how she and their children survived each day while they lived from hand to mouth. She added that she stopped having s3x with him to avoid getting pregnant again after they had their fourth child.

Husband tackles wife's lover: Though he slept with my wife, I insist the pregnancy is mine

They lived from hand to mouth and from day to day, and from one election to another ...

A storm is gathering in the US

He said that the common worker lived from hand to mouth even after working round the clock whereas the rulers living on public taxes gave more importance to their horses and pet dogs than the poor labourers.

Plunderers won't find refuge anywhere

"His family supposedly lived from hand to mouth. Why spend HK$5,000 when his family was in dire straits?"

Filipino pickpockets busted in Hong Kong

"I have lived from hand to mouth and had even given up on my life as I guessed there was no more hope in the future.

Korean 'street boy' wows world with voice and courage

We lived from hand to mouth but were brought up with decency and respect - for ourselves and others.

Sad reality; Yourview

Only time will tell, and hopefully if it does go ahead - and as stated it will be more of a shock it doesn't now - it proves to be a defining moment in turning around the fortunes of a great club that has lived from hand to mouth for so long now compared to others it once rubbed shoulders with.

Howa financial loss can offer grounds for a new; POST SOAPBOX

Everyone lived from hand to mouth. The only saving grace was that I loved my job at the hospital, where I assisted stroke victims with their physio.

Theresa was my best mate and a lesbian ..we married to make her mum happy; My life.. PAUL O'GRADY IN HIS OWN WORDS

He lived from hand to mouth, shoplifting and street-fighting.

Matthew makes it from the last-chance saloon

Wright seems to be pointing in that direction: "our inability to foresee--or watch out for long range consequences may be inherent to our kind, shaped by the millions of years when we lived from hand to mouth by hunting and gathering" (Progress p.

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military has built mammoth bases everywhere on the island, and local people have lived from hand to mouth by cultivating land at corners of U.S.

FOCUS: Base land cultivated with tacit approval

"She lived from hand to mouth, hour to hour, hit to hit.

MOTHER'S TEARS FOR HER TORSO GIRL AMY; Appeal to find tragic drug girl's evil killers