Hand-to-mouth

Quick meaning: Hand-to-mouth is an adjective meaning Involving immediate consumption (especially of food) with no provision for the future; having barely enough to survive, in poverty.

Meaning

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

Example Sentences

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.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include meagerly, meager, meagre, cash-starved, penniless, dirt-poor.

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