phrasal verb · informal

scrape by

/skreɪp baɪ/SKREIP·BY

speakingtask2

To manage to live or survive with very little money.

Examples

“During college he could only scrape by on a part-time wage.”

“They scraped by for months after one of them lost their job.”

“She had to scrape by until her freelance work picked up.”

Band 8 sentence

“After the factory closed, the family scraped by for over a year, cutting every unnecessary expense and relying on neighbours for help.”

Collocations

  • scrape by on a low salary
  • scrape by each month

Word family

scrapes by phrasal verb (3rd sing.)scraped by phrasal verb (past)scraping by phrasal verb (gerund)

Common mistakes

scrape through→scrape by

scrape by with→scrape by on

Say it for a higher band

5get by→6manage to pay the bills→7+scrape by

Synonyms

get by

manage to survive

Easily confused

get by

“Many families get by with one income, but they do not save much.”

Related words

between a rock and a hard placestrapped for cashmake ends meetat one's wit's endweather the stormbe up against ithit a snagbe up to one's neck (in something)

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In Hardship

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