scrape by

phrasal verb

scraped by; scraping by; scrapes by

: to live with barely enough money : to be able to buy only the things most needed

Money was tight, but we somehow managed to scrape by.

: to succeed at doing something but just barely

He didn't study for the exam and just barely scraped by.

Examples of scrape by in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The show watches as Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to try to convince his vagabond son (Johnny Flynn) to return home. —

Matt Grobar, Deadline, 17 July 2024 After scraping by with side projects since getting laid off during the pandemic, Owens finally landed a full-time position managing a housing nonprofit group in late 2022. —

J.j. McCorvey, NBC News, 10 July 2024 Still, that’s often not enough to scrape by in this economy, as the Fight for $15 campaign notes; that group and others now say a $20 minimum wage nationally is a necessity. —

Orianna Rosa Royle, Fortune, 23 June 2024 Marx predicted a world not of monopolies but of oligopolistic competition, in which incumbents enjoy monopolistic profits, smaller firms struggle to scrape by, and new entrants try to innovate in order to gain market share. —

Robin Varghese, Foreign Affairs, 14 June 2018 See all Example Sentences for scrape by

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