eked out
Stretched to suffice
Eked out means obtained or sustained with difficulty, usually in small or barely sufficient amounts.
To eke out a living is to scrape by, earning just enough to survive: She eked out a living selling produce at the market.
The phrase can also mean to extend a limited supply: We eked out the last of the firewood through the cold night.
- endureSuffer through without yielding
- striveMake sustained effort
- scavengeGather from waste
- scrape bySurvive with minimal resources
- got byBarely managed to survive
just barely · hand to mouth · bare minimum · ration · thin margins · improvise · subsist · economize · make do · persist · scraped together · budget · repurpose · cope · salvage · conserve · stretch · stretched thin
manner of obtaining
eked outsquandered
Carelessly used up
splurged · wasted · threw away · lavished · splashed out