live off

verb

lived off; living off; lives off

transitive verb

: to use (something or someone) as the main source of what one needs to survive (such as money or food)

… the indigenous … people, who have inhabited the rain forest of Irian Jaya, living off the land, for thousands of years.

—Eyal Press

… the fish goes into a kind of hibernation, living off its reserves of fat …

—Mark Carwardine

… she is one of the few Iditarod competitors who have turned professional, living off race winnings.

—National Wildlife

… a growing subculture of people who have reduced their spending habits and live off consumer waste.

—Erika Hayasaki

Max lives off his father …

—Harold Beaver

Examples of live off in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

To help subsidize her expenses, Read reportedly sold her Mansfield home for $810,000 in November 2024 and is living off of her 401(k) retirement fund after losing her jobs as a Bentley University finance professor and Fidelity Investments equities analyst following her arrest. —Julia Bonavita, FOXNews.com, 1 June 2025

By the time that first big screen adaptation came to theaters in late 2001, Rowling had published four Potter books and sold over 100 million copies, vaulting her from living off welfare checks to multi-millionaire celebrity status. —Matt Craig, Forbes.com, 30 May 2025

Erivo additionally portrays secret fifth sister, Felicity, a respected mixed-media artist, who now quietly lives off the grid in artistic solitude. —Bill Desowitz, IndieWire, 10 May 2025

Colby Grey Back in Santa Cruz, Grey lived off campus in a two-bedroom apartment with three other roommates and worked as a study abroad advisor. —Celia Fernandez, CNBC, 10 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1609, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for live off

• cerenkov
• ashraf
• checkoff
• cutoff
• falloff
• handoff
• kickoff
• layoff
• liftoff
• markoff
• markov
• payoff