live by

phrasal verb

lived by; living by; lives by

1

: to agree with and follow (something, such as a set of beliefs)

He tried to live by his faith.

a principle I try to live by

2

: to survive by (doing something)

They were an ancient people who lived by hunting and gathering.

Examples of live by in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Alice Mabel Gray, aka Diana of the Dunes, lived by herself in a shack for almost a decade in the early 1900s in the area that is now the national park. —Graham Averill, Outside, 28 Oct. 2025

The annual Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, broadcasted live by NBC, will officially set the tree aglow. —Colson Thayer, PEOPLE, 27 Oct. 2025

Power is the willingness to live by your code, whatever the means and whatever consequences. —Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 22 Oct. 2025

Unlike many other contemporary writers, such as Tolstoy or Turgenev, who were well off, Dostoyevsky lived by his writing and struggled throughout his life to earn enough money. —Karl Ove Knausgaard, New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2025

Rhymes for live by

• abscissae
• alibi
• alkali
• alumni
• amoebae
• amplify
• annuli
• beautify
• brachii
• butterfly
• calculi
• certify