If you eke a living or eke out an existence, you manage to survive with very little money. That forced peasant farmers to try to eke a living off steep hillsides He was eking out an existence on a few francs a day. Also
To increase; to add to; to augment; now commonly used with out, the notion conveyed being to add to, or piece out by a laborious, inferior, or scanty addition; as, to eke out a scanty supply of one kind with some other
[ 'Ek ] (adverb.) before 12th century. From Middle English eken (“to increase”), from Old English īecan (“to increase”), from West Germanic aukjana, from Proto-Germanic *aukanan (“increase”), from Proto-Indo-European *aug- (“to increase”). Akin to Danish øge, Icelandic auka, Swedish öka and Latin augeō, Old English ēac (“also”).