How to Use hand-to-mouth in a Sentence

hand-to-mouth

adjective
  • Ever since then, the Ekdals have lived hand-to-mouth, bolstered by Håkon’s charity.
    — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 14 Sep. 2025
  • The film is not blind to how easily big dreams can be derailed, especially for the hand-to-mouth creative class in a Midwestern outpost.
    — Peter Tonguette, The Washington Examiner, 9 Jan. 2026
  • Drop Shots 💰 How match-fixers prey on tennis players living a hand-to-mouth existence lower down the sport’s rankings.
    — Charlie Eccleshare, New York Times, 4 June 2026
  • While their musician patriarch is on the road, the eldest sibling has become the clear-eyed voice of discipline in the household who struggles with the strain of their hand-to-mouth life.
    — Rob Hubbard, Twin Cities, 20 Dec. 2025
  • Behavioral habits, including hand-to-mouth motion, inhalation and smoking rituals may also contribute to why quitting is difficult for many smokers.
    — Victoria Forster, Forbes.com, 20 May 2026
  • In leading the study, Rogers tested 30 braiding hair products across human, plant-based, and synthetic categories, including brands people specifically asked him to evaluate, like Gyal and Rebundle, using a hand-to-mouth risk assessment.
    — Essence, 1 Apr. 2026
  • At the start of The Big Fake, a Netflix dramatization of one criminal’s involvement in the most tumultuous events in post-war Italy, Toni Chichiarelli (Pietro Castellitto) is a talented painter living hand-to-mouth as a portrait artist on the streets of Rome.
    — Rory Doherty, Time, 26 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hand-to-mouth.' 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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