feast-or-famine
[ feest-er-fam-in ]
/ ˈfist ərˈfæm ɪn /
adjective
characterized by alternating, extremely high and low degrees of prosperity, success, volume of business, etc.: artists who lead a feast-or-famine life.
QUIZZES
LEARN THE SPANISH WORDS FOR THESE COMMON ANIMALS!
Are you learning Spanish? Or do you just have an interest in foreign languages? Either way, this quiz on Spanish words for animals is for you.
Question 1 of 13
How do you say “cat” 🐈 in Spanish?
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2021
Idioms and Phrases with 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.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.