subsist on

phrasal verb

subsisted on; subsisting on; subsists on
: to use (something) as a way to stay alive : to live on (something)
poor people subsisting on just one or two dollars a day
The villagers subsist almost entirely on rice and fish.
(humorous) My brother subsists on pizza.

Examples of subsist on in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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After a while, Beckwith was subsisting on a single piece of fruit a day. Liz Szabo, NBC News, 21 Dec. 2024 Plex, subsisting on revenues from this business as well as development grants, is currently a team of three engineers working on its more ambitious vision. IEEE Spectrum, 22 June 2017 Oxfam reported that people there were subsisting on the equivalent of less than a can of beans per day, and that ninety-five per cent of the territory had no access to clean water. Dorothy Wickenden, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2024 The entire inmate population subsists on the same meal, laid out across a single table that arrives on a descending platform once a day, stopping at each floor for a few minutes. A.a. Dowd, Vulture, 5 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for subsist on 

Dictionary Entries Near subsist on

Cite this Entry

“Subsist on.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subsist%20on. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

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