make both ends meet

English

make both ends meet (third-person singular simple present makes both ends meet, present participle making both ends meet, simple past and past participle made both ends meet)

(now uncommon) Synonym of make ends meet
- 1661, Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England:
  (entry on Archbishop Edmund Grindall) Worldly wealth he cared not for, desiring only to make both ends meet; and as for that little that lapped over he gave it to pious uses.
- 1895, Marie Corelli, The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 5:
  Do you know what it is to be poor? Not poor with the arrogant poverty complained of by certain people who have five or six thousand a year to live upon, and who yet swear they can hardly manage to make both ends meet, but really poor, […]