keep one's head above water

Verb

 * 1)  To survive or endure, especially in a situation in which one is struggling to avoid being overwhelmed by adverse financial circumstances.
 * 2) * 1764, M. C., A Lady of Quality, Each Sex in their Humour or, The Histories of the Families of Brightley, Finch, Fortescue, Shelburne and Stevens, London, p. 20:
 * I endeavoured to obtain a mitigation of this severe sentence, by offering myself to engage for the payment of the remaining sum, to preserve my mother's small salary unencumbered; but he interrupted me with the utmost cruelty, by saying . . . it would be pretty well if, for some years, I could keep my own head above water.
 * 1) * 1863, James Robert Gilmore (writing as Edmund Kirke), My Southern Friends, Tribune Assoc., ch. 17 :
 * Besides, I have had to borrow ten thousand dollars of him to keep my head above water.
 * 1) * 1932 Aug. 15, "The Press: Broken Mirror," Time (quoting farewell editorial in Detroit Mirror):
 * The capitalist system being one under which a profit must be made by any enterprise that is to keep its head above water, we are forced to call off the fight in this case.
 * The capitalist system being one under which a profit must be made by any enterprise that is to keep its head above water, we are forced to call off the fight in this case.

Translations

 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin:
 * Czech: držet se nad vodou
 * Danish: holde hovedet oven vande
 * Dutch: zijn hoofd boven water houden, het overleven, het de baas kunnen
 * Finnish: pitää nenä pinnalla
 * French: garder la tête hors de l'eau
 * Norwegian:
 * Bokmål: ,
 * Polish: utrzymywać się na powierzchni, utrzymać się na powierzchni
 * Portuguese:
 * Spanish: