scrape by
phrasal verb
scraped by; scraping by; scrapes by
1
: 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.
2
: 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
Tom is a small-time scammer scraping by in early-1960s New York City when he’s summoned to meet with Herbert Greenleaf (Manchester by the Sea filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan), a shipping magnate whose son Richard has been living in Italy on a trust fund.
—
Judy Berman, TIME, 4 Apr. 2024
California's Proposition 1 scraped by with barely more than 50% of the vote in a heavily Democratic state.
—USA TODAY, 29 Mar. 2024
Dalton is barely scraping by on the reputation that still precedes him, when he is spotted by Frankie (Jessica Williams), owner of a roadhouse in the Florida Keys.
—Tim Chan, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Mar. 2024
The Longhorns received three first-place votes and the Seminoles got one.
After scraping by South Florida on Saturday, Alabama (2-1) saw its streak of consecutive AP poll appearances ranked in the top 10 snapped at 128.
—Ralph D. Russo, Chicago Tribune, 17 Sep. 2023
The Crimson Tide were a mess early in the year, getting manhandled at home by Texas and barely scraping by South Florida.
—Paul Newberry, USA TODAY, 11 Jan. 2024
The bottom line is that the Texans were scraping by mediocre opponents while the Ravens were smashing some of the league’s best teams.
—Childs Walker, Baltimore Sun, 8 Jan. 2024
And plenty of publishers have now taken steps to prevent their websites from being freely scraped by web crawlers.
—Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 2 Jan. 2024
But statistics on jobs filled don’t tell the whole story of people barely scraping by in multiple jobs, underemployed after a career derailment or pushed into retirement against their will.
—Karla L. Miller, Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2024
Judy Berman, TIME, 4 Apr. 2024
California's Proposition 1 scraped by with barely more than 50% of the vote in a heavily Democratic state.
—USA TODAY, 29 Mar. 2024
Dalton is barely scraping by on the reputation that still precedes him, when he is spotted by Frankie (Jessica Williams), owner of a roadhouse in the Florida Keys.
—Tim Chan, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Mar. 2024
The Longhorns received three first-place votes and the Seminoles got one.
After scraping by South Florida on Saturday, Alabama (2-1) saw its streak of consecutive AP poll appearances ranked in the top 10 snapped at 128.
—Ralph D. Russo, Chicago Tribune, 17 Sep. 2023
The Crimson Tide were a mess early in the year, getting manhandled at home by Texas and barely scraping by South Florida.
—Paul Newberry, USA TODAY, 11 Jan. 2024
The bottom line is that the Texans were scraping by mediocre opponents while the Ravens were smashing some of the league’s best teams.
—Childs Walker, Baltimore Sun, 8 Jan. 2024
And plenty of publishers have now taken steps to prevent their websites from being freely scraped by web crawlers.
—Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 2 Jan. 2024
But statistics on jobs filled don’t tell the whole story of people barely scraping by in multiple jobs, underemployed after a career derailment or pushed into retirement against their will.
—Karla L. Miller, Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2024
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.
Dictionary Entries Near scrape by
Cite this Entry
“Scrape by.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scrape%20by. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
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