Meaning of hand-to-mouth | Babel Free

Definitions

Involving immediate consumption (especially of food) with no provision for the future; having barely enough to survive, in poverty

Equivalents

Examples

“She has been a widow these six or eight years, and has lived, I imagine⟳, in rather a hand-to-mouth fashion.”

“The Migrant Fleet has little economic base⟳, operating in a state of perpetual "hand-to-mouth". While quarian ships include⟳ light⟳ manufacturing and assembly plants, they lack heavy industries such as refining and shipbuilding. The fleet has tankers for water purification and oxygen cracking, but the space-intensive nature of agriculture limits food production. A single disaster could destroy⟳ the fragile balance.”

CEFR level