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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

See Examples For:

feast-or-famine feast or famine

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

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

From New York Times ● Mar. 8, 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 L. D. Frenzel

This year the Dodgers’ offense has been a case of feast or famine.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2026

Root has been feast or famine in this series.

From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2026

That’s no accident: As more works these days distribute the storytelling burden equally among many members of a cast, odd nomination outcomes — feast or famine — can result.

From New York Times ● Apr. 30, 2024

While freelancing can be feast or famine, it’s important to set realistic deadlines, negotiate for better rates, and know when quitting one job might be your best bet.

From Slate ● Nov. 2, 2023

It was a case of feast or famine with Fuller, and he poured his tale into sympathetic ears.

From A Trooper Galahad by Charles King