hand-to-mouth

adjective

: having or providing nothing to spare beyond basic necessities
a hand-to-mouth existence
hand to mouth adverb

Examples of hand-to-mouth in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The district is little more than a stretch of desert punctuated by villages where people live hand-to-mouth along Afghanistan’s western border. Yaqoob Akbary Victor J. Blue, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2023 The more common black experience was dominated by extreme financial insecurity, jobs marked by arbitrary or brutal discipline, income that could afford little better than a hand-to-mouth existence, and dangerous conditions of employment with no prospects for improvement or advancement. Adolph Reed Jr., Harper's Magazine, 21 Feb. 2022 The pair started their own hand-to-mouth theater company, barely scraping by. Mark Rozzo, Town & Country, 2 Apr. 2023 She’s also visited by her boyfriend Ethan (Charlie Plummer), a cancer survivor who like a lot of the kids in their ritzy private school has a hard time understanding what Bea’s more marginalized, hand-to-mouth childhood has been like. Noel Murray, Los Angeles Times, 24 Mar. 2023 Both dropped out of college and essentially lived hand-to-mouth in order to pursue their musical dreams. Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 11 Mar. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hand-to-mouth.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1748, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of hand-to-mouth was in 1748

Dictionary Entries Near hand-to-mouth

Cite this Entry

“Hand-to-mouth.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hand-to-mouth. Accessed 18 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

hand-to-mouth

adjective
-tə-ˈmau̇th
: having or providing nothing to spare
a hand-to-mouth existence
hand to mouth adverb
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