MEANING
To manage just well enough to continue, especially when facing financial problems or heavy demands.
Use it for
describing a household barely managing its bills; showing someone coping without making much progress; distinguishing survival from prosperity; explaining that current demands leave little spare capacityDescribes managing just well enough to continue, particularly under financial pressure, rather than thriving. Writing functions: Difficulty / Barely coping. Semantic categories (by meaning): Difficulty / Barely coping. Contexts: General conversation; Creative prose.
Words that belong together
- just keep your head above water
- struggle to keep your head above water
On the page
The repair shop earned enough to keep its head above water through the winter.
She was keeping her head above water at work, but had no time for the extra course.
Word forms
- Base
- keep your head above water
Usage notes
Verbal idiom: keep/keeps/kept/keeping one’s head above water. Match the possessive to the subject. Not a phrasal verb merely because water follows a preposition. Register: neutral. Commonness: common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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