All 3 Uses of
subsistence
in
The Scarlet Letter
- Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but their own independent exertions.†
Chpt Intr.
- Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child.†
Chpt 5 *
- But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil, and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening.†
Chpt 7
Definition:
-
(subsistence) what is minimally needed to survive; or the condition of minimally surviving