ăn đong
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Verb phrase:
- To live from hand to mouth: To live with very little money, spending all earnings on immediate basic needs with no ability to save for the future. It describes a precarious, day-to-day existence.
Usage Examples
- Verb phrase:
- Gia đình anh ấy phải ăn đong sau trận lũ. (His family had to live from hand to mouth after the flood.)
- Công việc bấp bênh khiến họ ăn đong suốt mười năm. (The unstable job forced them to live from hand to mouth for ten years.)
Advanced Usage
- The phrase often implies a state of poverty and insecurity that is chronic or long-term, not just a temporary difficulty.
- It can be used to describe an individual, a family, or even a small business surviving with no financial buffer.
Variants and Related Words
- Sống tạm bợ (verb phrase): to live in a makeshift or precarious manner, often overlapping with the economic insecurity of "ăn đong."
- Kiếm ăn qua ngày (verb phrase): to earn just enough to get through the day, closely related in meaning.
Synonyms
- To live hand-to-mouth: The direct equivalent.
- To eke out a living: To make a living with great difficulty.
- To scrape by: To manage to live with barely enough money.
Related Idioms
- Đầu tắt mặt tối: To work extremely hard from dawn till dusk, often for a meager living that results in an "ăn đong" lifestyle.
- Lần hồi qua ngày: To get by day by day, similar in describing a precarious, subsistence-level existence.
- To live from hand to mouth