keep body and soul together

verb

Of a person: to survive; to continue living.

“How did you keep body and soul together before you got your first paying job as an actor?”

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

verbkeep body and soul together (third-person singular simple present keeps body and soul together, present participle keeping body and soul together, simple past and past participle kept body and soul together)

present singular third person keeps body and soul together · participle present keeping body and soul together · participle past kept body and soul together · past kept body and soul together · alternative keep soul and body together

  1. Of a person: to survive; to continue living.

    How did you keep body and soul together before you got your first paying job as an actor?

    1 more example

    Trout lives in a rented basement in Ilium, about two miles from Billy’s nice white home. He himself has no idea how many novels he has written—possibly seventy-five of the things. Not one of them has made money. So Trout keeps body and soul together as a circulation man for the Ilium Gazette, manages newspaper delivery boys, bullies and flatters and cheats little kids.

    1969 March 31, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five […] (A Seymour Lawrence Book), New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →OCLC, page 142
Cite this entry
APA

keep body and soul together. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/keep%20body%20and%20soul%20together

MLA

“keep body and soul together.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/keep%20body%20and%20soul%20together. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “keep body and soul together,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/keep%20body%20and%20soul%20together.

Source: keep body and soul together on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.