Wiktionary
vb. (en-pasteke out)
Usage examples of "eked out".
When the pressure on the back of his neck finally eased up a bit, he was able to see that the car was bumping through sparsely settled slum areas, where only a few rock rats eked out a living in stale air, without piped water or electricity.
He assumed them to be little less than robbers under a thin disguise, who probably eked out a miserable existence by levying toll in corn and oil and goats' milk upon the neighbouring peasantry, but this great pile upon the slopes of Mount Peristeri was so much more vast than anything that he had imagined.
Even in the world he'd known, cavalry was the Romans' weakest arm, always eked out with allies or mercenaries.
Sophie waited through these preambles, which put her in mind of others, long ago, other small words eked out before a hard thing was said.
Left alone, it might have spent another twenty billion years slowly shrinking as it eked out a flickering white surface flame.