day-by-day
adjective
taking place each day; daily.
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day-by-day
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day by day
day by dayOn each successive day, daily, as in Day by day he's getting better. Percy Bysshe Shelley used this expression, first recorded in 1362, in Adonais (1821): “fear and grief ... consume us day by day.”
day-by-day
American
[day-bahy-day]
/ ˈdeɪ baɪˈdeɪ /
adjective
day by day
Idioms
Etymology
Origin of day-by-day
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Nathan adds: "You're trying to run a home, you're trying to maintain high-pressure jobs, as well as look after a four-year-old child that's just gone through an awful tragedy. It's impossible on a day-by-day basis."
From BBC ● May 29, 2026
Rovere, on the other hand, found the book to be “barren of ideas and imagination,” and “scarcely more interesting or enlightening than the day-by-day newspaper accounts.”
From Salon ● Mar. 7, 2026
"I've said it for a while, I'm taking it day-by-day, series-by-series, and we'll see where things land," said Smith, who has played 122 Tests and scored more than 10,000 runs.
From Barron's ● Jan. 3, 2026
But the appropriators have continued their work through this period… So it’s a touch and go day-by-day analysis that we have here as a leadership team.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2025
And what labour all that excavation and construction represented—the cumulative labour of months and day-by-day repairs of the damage done by shells!
From My Year of the War Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the First Time in its Complete Form by Frederick Palmer
David Starkey’s account of Henry VIII’s reign takes us, day by day, from Greenwich and Westminster to Hampton Court, alongside Henry and his successive queens.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
"I was so upset. I didn't know actually how it was going to be day by day," she said.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
For Navarrette, the success of the movie has been a roller coaster, but she is "taking it day by day."
From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026
Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula, asked if a decision had been made regarding whether Donald would play against the 49ers, said “everything’s” day by day.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
The destroyers had sent them to ruin this world, and day by day they were doing it.
From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
