subsistence
/səbˈsɪstəns/ noun C2- Real being; existence.
- The act of maintaining oneself at a minimum level.
- Inherency. · the subsistence of qualities in bodies
- Something (food, water, money, etc.) that is required to stay alive.
- Embodiment or personification or hypostasis of an underlying principle or quality.
Plural subsistences
From the library
The Hound, feeling much aggrieved at this, reproached his companion, saying, “It is very hard to have all this labor, while you, who do not assist in the chase, luxuriate on the fruits of my exertions.” The Housedog replied, “Do not blame me, my friend, but find fault with the master, who has not taught me to labor, but to depend for subsistence on the labor of others.”
“However well disposed a person may be, why, you see we leave off after a time seeing persons who are in sorrow, they make one melancholy; and so at last old Dantès was left all to himself, and I only saw from time to time strangers go up to him and come down again with some bundle they tried to hide; but I guessed what these bundles were, and that he sold by degrees what he had to pay for his subsistence.
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