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• feast-or-famine
  feast-or-famine

  adjective

  characterized by alternating, extremely high and low degrees of prosperity, success, volume of business, etc..
• feast or famine
  feast or famine

  Also, either feast or famine. Either too much or too little, too many or too few. For example, Free-lancers generally find it's feast or famine—too many assignments or too few, or Yesterday two hundred showed up at the fair, today two dozen—it's either feast or famine. This expression, which transfers an overabundance or shortage of food to numerous other undertakings, was first recorded in 1732 as feast or fast, the noun famine being substituted in the early 1900s.

feast-or-famine

American  

[feest-er-fam-in] / ˈfist ərˈfæm ɪn /

adjective

1. characterized by alternating, extremely high and low degrees of prosperity, success, volume of business, etc..

   artists who lead a feast-or-famine life.

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feast or famine Idioms  

1. Also, either feast or famine. Either too much or too little, too many or too few. For example, Free-lancers generally find it's feast or famine—too many assignments or too few, or Yesterday two hundred showed up at the fair, today two dozen—it's either feast or famine. This expression, which transfers an overabundance or shortage of food to numerous other undertakings, was first recorded in 1732 as feast or fast, the noun famine being substituted in the early 1900s.

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Example Sentences

That is consistent with the feast-or-famine environment of higher education.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 26, 2026

Pope's stats mask a feast-or-famine career – before this game 34% of his Test runs had come in only six of his previous 98 knocks.

From BBC • Jun. 21, 2025

Day jobs provide stability through the feast-or-famine cycles of gallery sales.

From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2023

When the 2022 Yankees started looking like the 2021 Yankees, even for a few weeks, the obvious question arose: Are they still that streaky feast-or-famine team with the late-inning lethargy?

From Washington Post • Aug. 25, 2022

However, much variation can be expected in an animal whose physiology must be adapted to a feast-or-famine existence.

From Ecological Studies of the Timber Wolf in Northeastern Minnesota by Frenzel, L. D.