rough it
verb1
Colloquial To endure hard living conditions; to live without ordinary comforts.
- Out in the backwoods with only a tent and no radio or plumbing, they were really roughing it.
- I agree that boys ought to rough it; but when a boy is lame and very delicate, he roughs it sufficiently if he leaves home.1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 31:
- Related terms
- scrape by