feel the pinch

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

feel the pinch (third-person singular simple present feels the pinch, present participle feeling the pinch, simple past and past participle felt the pinch)

1. (idiomatic, informal) To suffer a hardship, especially significant financial pressure.

   Working-class families are feeling the pinch in the wake of the recession.

   • 1954 May, H. Fayle, “Dublin Suburban Services”, in Railway Magazine, page 300:

     The tramway was offered to the Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford Railway, but that company expressed no interest in it. Then the tramway proprietors decided to electrify their line, and cut the fares by half, and the railway was soon feeling the pinch.

Translations

to suffer a hardship

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 手頭拮据 (shǒutóu jiéjū)

• Finnish: tuntea nahoissaan
• French: peiner à joindre les deux bouts, devoir se serrer la ceinture
• Italian: essere con l'acqua alla gola
• Polish: odczuwać niedobór impf, odczuć niedobór pf
• Portuguese: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: затяну́ть реме́нь pf (zatjanútʹ reménʹ), положи́ть зу́бы на по́лку (ru) pf (položítʹ zúby na pólku)
• Spanish: please add this translation if you can