How to Use subsist on in a Sentence
subsist on
phrasal verb-
The average litter size is four to five pups, which subsist on their mother’s milk for the first five to nine weeks of their lives.
—Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Aug. 2023
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The news agency added that workers subsisted on food and oxygen that came through steel pipes.
—David Chiu, Peoplemag, 28 Nov. 2023
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Native to Brazil, marmosets subsist on a diet of insects and the gum or sap from trees, experts say.
—Mitchell Willetts The Charlotte Observer (tns), al, 26 Jan. 2023
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His family is subsisting on a dwindling 440-pound bag of flour, bought with a loan.
—Lynsey Addario Victoria Kim, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2024
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Birds that subsisted on nuts and seeds had big strong beaks, well-suited for cracking open nuts and crushing hard seeds.
—Avery Hurt, Discover Magazine, 1 June 2023
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The health chatter was all about fat and carbs; children routinely subsisted on a single pouch of Capri Sun a day.
—Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 4 Aug. 2023
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With no soil to support agriculture, the Uros people continue to subsist on fish, birds and eggs from the lake, much as their ancestors did.
—Tim Brinkhof, Discover Magazine, 12 Nov. 2023
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Born and raised along the Scandinavian coast and subsisting on seafood, Vittrup Man suddenly crossed the sea to live and eat like a farmer in Denmark while still a teenager.
—Ashley Strickland, CNN, 17 Feb. 2024
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Agile juvenile tyrannosaurs were able to run down, kill and subsist on animals like the smaller Citipes.
—Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Dec. 2023
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By the late 1920’s, when my family had leveraged their ranch for a pathway to the middle class, many Indigenous people in the U.S. either had no land at all or didn’t have enough land to subsist on.
—TIME, 5 Oct. 2023
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Cycads should not need watering more than once a week, even in summer and, once established, can subsist on hardly any water at all.
—Joshua Siskin, Orange County Register, 30 Mar. 2024
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And with the cattle and crops lost, pressure is mounting on the 80 percent of Ethiopia’s population that subsists on rain-dependant agriculture.
—Foreign Affairs, 22 Mar. 2016
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Gazans are not getting enough nutrition More than 90 percent of young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza are subsisting on two or fewer food groups, such as bread, per day.
—Lauren Weber, Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2024
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Violence grinds on unabated, and civilians subsist on meager aid provision—in areas where they can be reached.
—Emma Beals and Peter Salisbury, Foreign Affairs, 30 Oct. 2023
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Without access to soil, their descendants continue to survive primarily as hunter-gatherers, subsisting on fish, birds and eggs found on the lake.
—Tim Brinkhof, Discover Magazine, 12 Nov. 2023
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Indigenous tribes such as the Nez Perce and the Shoshone-Bannock subsisted on those fish, with salmon in particular taking on great spiritual significance.
—Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 26 Sep. 2023
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Does the family really subsist on the moonshine that fills their refrigerator?
—Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, 1 June 2023
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Local officials hired wildlife control specialist Trevor Bounds to hunt and remove the snake, which has reportedly been subsisting on urban-dwelling critters.
—Sage Marshall, Field & Stream, 4 Oct. 2023
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Imagine subsisting on just Doritos—our bodies would never flourish.
—Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal, Parents, 26 Feb. 2024
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Histories of eating disorders often begin with anorexia mirabilis (the holy loss of appetite), a medieval phenomenon of fasting saints who subsisted on little more than the Eucharist.
—Anna Shechtman, Harper's Magazine, 9 Feb. 2024
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Some residents have stopped going out altogether, subsisting on whatever was in their cupboards on Oct. 7.
—Louisa Loveluck, Washington Post, 9 Nov. 2023
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Many television, print, and online outlets subsist on pharma-advertising revenue.
—Matthew Scully, National Review, 16 May 2023
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After three years of subsisting on federal relief aid, transit leaders say more money from Virginia, Maryland, the District, the federal government, or a special tax or fee are the only solutions without significant cuts.
—Ovetta Wiggins, Washington Post, 20 June 2023
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Story continues below advertisement The hydropower dams, which altogether stand at 411 feet, also devastated the salmon population and the Indigenous tribes who had subsisted on the fish for millennia.
—Melina Mara, Washington Post, 14 Dec. 2023
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'subsist on.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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