hand-to-mouth

adj

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *handuz Proto-West Germanic *handu Old English hand Middle English hond English hand English to English mouth English hand-to-mouth From hand + to + mouth.

1. Involving immediate consumption (especially of food) with no provision for the future; having barely enough to survive, in poverty

   “She has been a widow these six or eight years, and has lived, I imagine, in rather a hand-to-mouth fashion.”

   “The Migrant Fleet has little economic base, operating in a state of perpetual "hand-to-mouth". While quarian ships include light manufacturing and assembly plants, they lack heavy industries such as refining and shipbuilding. The fleet has tankers for water purification and oxygen cracking, but the space-intensive nature of agriculture limits food production. A single disaster could destroy the fragile balance.”