get by

Example: “We don't earn much, but we get by.”

Origin: Combines "get," from Old English/Old Norse roots meaning to obtain, with "by" in its sense of passing something or moving past an obstacle — together suggesting movement that clears a difficulty rather than stopping dead at it. The idiom is generally dated to the early 1900s, taking hold particularly during periods of real economic hardship when "getting by" on very little was a literal daily reality for large numbers of people rather than a figure of speech. The phrase kept that core sense of bare, adequate survival even as it broadened to cover managing with the minimum amount of anything — money, skill, time — needed to scrape past a requirement rather than exceed it.