keep body and soul together

English

Alternative forms

• keep soul and body together

Verb

keep body and soul together (third-person singular simple present keeps body and soul together, present participle keeping body and soul together, simple past and past participle kept body and soul together)

1. Of a person: to survive; to continue living.

   How did you keep body and soul together before you got your first paying job as an actor?

   • 1969 March 31, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five […] (A Seymour Lawrence Book), New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →OCLC, page 142:

     Trout lives in a rented basement in Ilium, about two miles from Billy’s nice white home. He himself has no idea how many novels he has written—possibly seventy-five of the things. Not one of them has made money. So Trout keeps body and soul together as a circulation man for the Ilium Gazette, manages newspaper delivery boys, bullies and flatters and cheats little kids.

Related terms

• body and soul

Further reading

• “keep body and soul together”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “keep body and soul together”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “keep body and soul together” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “keep body and soul together”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “to keep together” under “keep, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.