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

The feast-or-famine lifestyle — ranging from getting a portion of international performance fees, to scraping by at home if they weren’t performing or booking enough parties— was wearing him down.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 4, 2023

State has been a feast-or-famine team all season.

From Washington Post • Mar. 12, 2023

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.