GETTING BY Synonyms: 35 Similar and Opposite Words

getting by

verb

present participle of get by

as in coping

to meet one's day-to-day needs working at night paid my college tuition and enabled me to get by—but just barely

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of getting by Acuff went left and went right, getting by Grimes rather easily. — Jason Anderson, Sacbee.com, 6 Oct. 2026 Only one lane of eastbound traffic was getting by during rush hour as police investigated. — Digital Producer, CBS News, 6 Oct. 2026 Related Stories Manchevski wrote and directed the dark comedy, which centers on Malina and Viktor, a sister and brother getting by hand to mouth at the edges of Macedonian society. — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 1 Oct. 2026 These cities and towns promised better jobs, cheaper homes, less traffic and higher quality of life, outweighing Florida’s allure of tropical weather and ease of getting by on Spanish alone. — Elliot Spagat, Los Angeles Times, 17 Sep. 2026 The result, says Roya, is deepening apathy among her fellow citizens, whose preoccupation now is just getting by. — Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, 1 Sep. 2026 That free ticket, obtained by getting by hitting two of six numbers on a previous drawing, is now worth $6 million. — David J. Neal, Miami Herald, 6 Aug. 2026 That is not the performance of a team getting by on heart. — Sylvana Quader Sinha, Forbes.com, 23 June 2026 Mexico passed its opening test with flying colors, getting by South Africa 2-0. — Dan Santaromita, New York Times, 18 June 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for getting by

Verb

When people have little relief from stress in a chaotic environment, their brains have difficulty coping with the ongoing prediction errors, Friston, McEwen and neuroscientist Achim Peters argued in a 2017 article.

— Maia Szalavitz, Scientific American, 20 Oct. 2026
Building and protecting those pipelines will be expensive—but far cheaper than trying to keep the strait open by force or coping with periodic shortages and price spikes.

— Philip H. Gordon, Foreign Affairs, 12 Oct. 2026

Definition of coping

Verb

The flight went on as planned, but these men knew my grandfather and heard that his daughters were getting on the plane.

— Suzy Exposito, Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2026
The idea is to sound like an inferior buck in the brush, one that is roaming around a mature deer’s space and getting on his nerves.

— Michael Hanback, Outdoor Life, 14 Oct. 2026

Definition of getting on

Verb

But people getting along is rarely as simple as wishing it, and the truth remains that Harry and his brother Prince William are still feuding.

— StyleCaster Editors, StyleCaster, 7 Oct. 2026
Interestingly, a fleeting scene of Noah leaning on his teammates becomes a tragic mirror to Hal never having been able to do so (as a kid or as a Lantern) and John never getting along with his brothers.

— Siddhant Adlakha, Vulture, 28 Sep. 2026

Definition of getting along

Verb

Any company doing a div-recap is likely taking a forward-looking view that the IPO market will be closed in the short run.

— Hugh Leask, CNBC, 16 Oct. 2026
Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor Donaldson, 60, was found to have aided and abetted her husband’s offenses for witnessing the abuse and doing nothing to intervene.

— ABC News, ABC News, 15 Oct. 2026

Definition of doing

Verb

Likewise, this season, dancers making out at Diesel made spectators part of the performance.

— Joan Kennedy, Vogue, 12 Oct. 2026
That’s no longer what, a few years ago, might have been described as a cautious approach, not when audiences are making out-of-nowhere titles like Obsession and Backrooms into buzzy hits and craving something new.

— Alison Willmore, Vulture, 9 Oct. 2026

Definition of making out

Verb

Positioning the commercial arm of the 100-year-old BBC for a streaming future while managing the traditional linear channels that still do great business in many international territories.

— Stewart Clarke, Deadline, 16 Oct. 2026
Years later, there’s still work to be done managing a film’s intellectual property rights and corporate vehicles.

— Kim Jackson, IndieWire, 15 Oct. 2026