rough it

English

Alternative forms

• rough it out

Verb

rough it (third-person singular simple present roughs it, present participle roughing it, simple past and past participle roughed it)

1. (colloquial) To endure hard living conditions; to live without ordinary comforts.

   Coordinate term: tough out

   Out in the backwoods with only a tent and no radio or plumbing, they were really roughing it.

   • 1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, The Longest Journey, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 31:

     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.

See also

• scrape by