hand-to-mouth adjective 1hand to mouth adverb 1 adjective1 •Involving immediate consumption (especially of food) with no provision for the future; having barely enough to survive, in povertyShe has been a widow these six or eight years, and has lived, I imagine, in rather a hand-to-mouth fashion. — 1879 hand to mouth adverb1 •In a hand-to-mouth manner.Hundreds of thousands of Syrians shelter beneath UN canvas in Jordan. In the irrigated fields of As Safi, these refugees survive hand to mouth, picking tomatoes for $11 a day. — 2014
