Meanings
- alternativenot comparableAlternative form of hand-to-mouth.
- not comparableIn a hand-to-mouth manner.
"Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving. Let's not beat about the bush - we are absolutely living hand to mouth now on TfL.
2020 July 15, Mike Brown talks to Paul Clifton, “Leading London's "hidden heroes"”, in Rail, page 422 more examples
2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text Hundreds of thousands of Syrians shelter beneath UN canvas in Jordan. In the irrigated fields of As Safi, these refugees survive hand to mouth, picking tomatoes for $11 a day.
Don’t abuse a laborer who is destitute and needy, whether he is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner living in your land and in your city. Pay him at the end of each workday; he’s living from hand to mouth and needs it now. If you hold back his pay, he’ll protest to GOD and you’ll have sin on your books.
2018, “Deuteronomy 24”, in Eugene H. Peterson, transl., The Message Deluxe Gift Bible, Tyndale House Publishers, →ISBN, page 196
Cite this entry
hand to mouth. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hand%20to%20mouth
“hand to mouth.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hand%20to%20mouth. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hand to mouth,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hand%20to%20mouth.
Source: hand to mouth on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.