feast-or-famine

[ feest-er-fam-in ]

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.

Idioms and Phrases

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.

Example Sentences

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

From Project Gutenberg