hand-to-mouth | Idiomator

Meaning: Involvingimmediateconsumption(especially of food) with no provision for thefuture; havingbarelyenoughtosurvive, inpoverty1879, Henry James,Eugene Pickering:She has been a widow these six or eight years, and has lived, I imagine, in rather ahand-to-mouthfashion.2008,BioWare,Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts,→ISBN,→OCLC, PC, scene: Quarians: Economy Codex entry: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.

Examples:

EN: Me and Beanie and the rest of these hand-to-mouth tumbleweed boys like you see in here.
ES: Yo, Beanie y el resto de estos vagabundos que ve usted aquí.
EN: I'm tired living from hand-to-mouth.
ES: Estoy cansada de vivir al día.
EN: The meanness of it, the shabbiness of it, the hand-to-mouth of it!
ES: Su baja calidad, su mal estado, su precariedad.
EN: Oh, I'm going to live hand-to-mouth and Rita won't have a worry in the world, huh?
ES: Yo viviré con apenas lo necesario y Rita no tendrá ninguna preocupación, ¿eh?
EN: It was a hand-to-mouth existence at best. I want more than that for you and the children.
ES: Yo ambiciono algo más que eso para tí y paras las niñas.
EN: Urged on, he says, by a hand-to-mouth underground existence... that still nags at many of his fellow deserters... who continue to look over their shoulders.
ES: Instado, dice, por una precaria existencia en la clandestinidad... que aún pesa sobre muchos de sus compañeros desertores... que continúan mirando sobre sus hombros.
EN: I'm not afraid of living hand-to-mouth.
ES: -Yo no le tengo miedo a la realidad.
EN: It's a bit hand-to-mouth, eh ...
ES: Todo es un poco precario...
EN: You're gonna keep on working your slaves and undercutting prices... so that folks like us will always live hand-to-mouth.
ES: Vais a seguir usando vuestros esclavos y rebajando los precios... ... paraqueotroscomonosotros tengamos siempre que trabajar duro.
EN: Lewis was always dirt poor, just lived hand-to-mouth, but I loved him.
ES: Lewis fue siempre pobre suciedad, Sólo vivido - mano-boca , Pero yo lo amaba .
EN: Everything. The shabby little jobs, living hand-to-mouth...
ES: Los trabajos de poca monta, las penurias...
EN: Most people don't live hand-to-mouth.
ES: No vive en forma precaria.
EN: Practically hand-to-mouth.
ES: - Prácticamente indigentes.
EN: Living a hand-to-mouth existence as a writer, given a roof over her head by Johnson, Mary burst into print in outrage at Burke's reflections.
ES: Viviendo una existencia precaria como escritora, provista de un techo por Johnson, Mary se apresuró a imprimir escandalizada por las reflexiones de Burke.
EN: instead of "hand-to-mouth scraping by."
ES: en lugar de "mano-y-boca raspados por".

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