Meaning of Idiom ‘Live (from) Hand to Mouth’
To live from hand to mouth means to only have enough money to buy the utmost essentials that one presently needs; to have barely enough money to survive and no ability to save so that one is always on the verge of not having food, shelter, etc.
This idiom is used with or without the preposition from as in they lived hand to mouth and they lived from hand to mouth. Other uses are possible without the verb live. For example: They had a hand to mouth existence.
Origin of “Live Hand to Mouth”
This idiom has been used since the 1500’s but came again into popular American use during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, a time where many people did not know how they would get their next meal. Whatever food was at hand was immediately eaten, thus the expression hand to mouth.
Sentence Examples
“The Beverly Hillbillies is a television comedy about a poor mountain family that lived hand to mouth before finding oil on their land and moving to Beverly Hills.”
“I was living from hand to mouth after I lost my job but after a few years I got back on my feet.”
Related Idioms
• From Rags to Riches: A way of describing a person who starts out in extreme poverty then becomes very wealthy.
• To Not Have Two Pennies to Rub Together: to be broke; very poor; impoverished. • • Make Ends Meet: To have enough money to pay your basic bills and expenses; to have an income that enables one to meet one’s minimum survival needs.
• On a Shoestring: With a very small amount of money or resources; a very small budget.
• Strapped for Cash: To not have any money available. This idiom has a similar meaning to be broke, hard up, short on money, and down to one’s last cent.
• Flat Broke: to be have no money at all; to be penniless; to have run out of funds. Variations of ‘flat broke’ are dead broke, stone broke, and stony broke.
• In Hock: While to be “in hock” often refers to an itemed being “pawned” or left with a pawnbroker as security for a loan, the phrase can also be used in a more general sense for debt.
• Get By: To manage to survive with very little money or without everything needed to survive
• Live paycheck to paycheck: To spend all of one’s current income on immediate living expenses, leaving zero surplus for savings and relying entirely on the next scheduled wage to survive.
• Scrape By: To barely manage to cover basic needs or expenses, surviving on the absolute minimum amount of money or resources available.
• Eke Out a Living: To support oneself financially with great difficulty and continuous struggle, often requiring exhausting effort just to maintain a baseline level of survival.