Keep body and soul together 🖐️🧍❤️🔗

Meaning

To earn just enough money or acquire barely sufficient resources to provide for one's basic needs and continue to live.

Origin

The phrase plays on the fundamental human understanding of life as the delicate union of the physical body and the spiritual soul. To 'keep body and soul together' literally means to maintain this fragile bond, to stay alive. This evocative expression gained significant traction in the English language, becoming particularly common by the 17th century. It was a time when economic hardship was widespread, and daily survival was often a precarious affair for many. The phrase vividly captured the desperate struggle to acquire just enough sustenance—food, shelter, warmth—to prevent the body from giving up and the soul from departing, symbolizing the absolute minimum required to stave off death and destitution.

Keep body and soul together represented with emoji🖐️🧍❤️🔗

This playful arrangement of hand, person, heart, and chain functions as a charming rebus, teaching the viewer the delightful quirk of how to "keep body and soul together." It's a lovely visual puzzle that nudges us to think about the essential equilibrium needed just to get by, all with a wink and a smile.

Examples

• After losing his factory job, he took on several part-time gigs just to keep body and soul together.
• Many aspiring artists struggle for years, taking odd jobs simply to keep body and soul together while pursuing their passion.