Word.ws English Dictionary

scrape by

scrape by verb: to only afford the essentials; to barely sustain oneself.

Verb

scrape by (third-person singular simple present scrapes by, present participle scraping by, simple past and past participle scraped by)

  1. (intransitive) To only afford the essentials; to barely sustain oneself.
    • Everyone in her family had to get a second job just so they could scrape by.
    Synonyms:
    scratch by

Synonyms of scrape by

Forms of scrape by

third-person singular presentscrapes by
present participlescraping by
past participlescraped by
pastscraped by

Origin of scrape by

From scrape + by.

Questions about scrape by

What does scrape by mean?
Scrape by means to only afford the essentials; to barely sustain oneself.
What part of speech is scrape by?
Scrape by is a verb.
What is the past tense of scrape by?
The past tense of scrape by is scraped by.

Words near scrape by in the dictionary

  1. scrape
  2. scrape acquaintance
  3. scrape along
  4. scrape and bow
  5. scrape at the bottom of the barrel
  6. scrape by
  7. scrape down
  8. scrape off
  9. scrape someone off the ceiling
  10. scrape the barrel
  11. scrape the bottom of the barrel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scrape by (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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