• keep soul and body together

keepbodyandsoultogether (third-person singular simple presentkeeps body and soul together,present participlekeeping body and soul together,simple past and past participlekept body and soul together)

1. Of a person: tosurvive; to continueliving.

   How did youkeep 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,page142:

     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 Troutkeeps body and soul together as a circulation man for theIlium Gazette, manages newspaper delivery boys, bullies and flatters and cheats little kids.

• body and soul

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

• keep soul and body together

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