How to Use subsist in a Sentence

subsist

verb
  • The author's right to royalties shall subsist for the term of the copyright.
  • To reduce weight, the crew subsists on freeze dried food.
    Time, 16 Feb. 2018
  • Russell’s game subsists on handling the ball at the top of the key and running pick-and-rolls.
    Connor Letourneau, SFChronicle.com, 1 July 2019
  • Kajokaya said this jump in food costs forces many people to subsist on just one meal a day.
    Ryan Bergeron, CNN, 3 Aug. 2022
  • The larvae take two years to mature and subsist on sedges and grasses, while the adults sip nectar.
    Andrew Warren, National Geographic, 16 Mar. 2016
  • The breakdowns still came, but not to an extent that Boston could subsist on them.
    Rob Mahoney, SI.com, 20 May 2018
  • People who were forced by debt to live in the poorhouse had to subsist on six and half pounds a year, paid from parish taxes.
    Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 28 Sep. 2020
  • If the contact isn’t emphatic or the ball is hit at people, Colon can subsist.
    Mark Bradley, ajc, 4 May 2017
  • They are adept at climbing and can chew and claw through a host of materials, and can subsist on garbage.
    Danny McDonald, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Dec. 2022
  • The house subsists on grants, resident fees of $150 a week and donations.
    Arelis R. Hernández, Washington Post, 5 July 2017
  • Those prices are roughly in line with global standards but still out of reach for many Cubans who subsist on state salaries of about $30 a month.
    Andrea Rodriguez, The Seattle Times, 5 Dec. 2018
  • Nature programs love to point in amazement to the fact that the largest animals on the planet subsist on some of the smallest, namely the krill.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 20 Apr. 2018
  • The catch: a 36-foot, 1-inch, young male bowhead that community members will subsist on over the next year.
    Jenna Kunze, Anchorage Daily News, 4 Sep. 2020
  • Mendoza and her team compared the DNA and microbiomes of three species of vampire bats to those of bats that subsist on insects, fruit or meat.
    Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 24 Feb. 2018
  • In Lynch's versions, the evil Harkonnen clan appears to subsist on bloodlike purple juice that flows through the veins of their minions.
    Samuel Goldman, The Week, 16 Sep. 2021
  • The patient was mostly subsisting on french fries, Pringles, white bread, ham and sausage, according to the case report.
    Time, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Also, sick in the tissue and in the head and subsisting only on small amounts of sugar, tons of caffeine and a purse pharmacy.
    Blake Bakkila, Health.com, 10 July 2018
  • For the nearly 35% of the workforce that subsists on freelance income, taxes can be extra tricky.
    Josh Smith, USA TODAY, 15 Mar. 2018
  • Most attendees did not much care, subsisting in the club’s smoky kaleidoscope of flesh.
    Matt Flegenheimer, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2018
  • In the wake of these legal costs, Theranos has been subsisting on a loan backed by its patent portfolio since late last year.
    Christopher Weaver, WSJ, 22 July 2018
  • Mr Romano of Nestlé says that Latin American ones used to subsist largely on table scraps, but no longer.
    The Economist, 22 June 2019
  • Unable to chew, Wadsack mostly subsists on smoothies and purees these days.
    Jocelyn Wiener, sacbee, 8 June 2017
  • In Brooklyn, Russell was a ball-dominant point guard whose game subsisted on pick-and-rolls.
    Connor Letourneau, SFChronicle.com, 12 July 2019
  • The country has a booming tech sector, but still half the nation subsists through agriculture.
    Pradheep J. Shanker, National Review, 15 Aug. 2017
  • Meanwhile, Eleven is hiding out in the woods and subsisting on Eggos left for her by Sheriff Hopper.
    Eliza Thompson, Cosmopolitan, 13 Oct. 2017
  • The area now houses strings of settlements of Syrian refugees, many of whom barely subsist.
    Michael Kranish, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2017
  • My abuelito subsisted on takeout and whatever the cousins could bring by.
    Alejandra Borunda, Bon Appetit, 2 Oct. 2017
  • The benefit of being a highly skilled worker is choice, options of where to work and live—that’s the point of subsisting on Soylent and blood boys and four hours of nightly sleep.
    Lisa Selin Davis, Curbed, 20 Nov. 2018
  • The pangs of Norman’s endometriosis intersect with barbed memories of childhood—and with the legacy of a mother who subsists on the pain of hunger.
    Rachel Vorona Cote, The New Republic, 7 Mar. 2018
  • Huge men may subsist on food portions that would barely sustain small women.
    William Neff, Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'subsist.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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