bread-and-water

It is the woman who cannot be content with less than all that is slowly starved to death on a bread-and-water diet and who does not find it out until the end.

The Kempton-Wace Letters 2010

Inside was a flat loaf of penance-bread-of the sort that minor criminals condemned to bread-and-water punishments were forced to subsist on-and a waterskin.

Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

Expensive technology was for expensive people, and us peasants were perfectly content in our technology-free, bread-and-water bubble.

Ben Berkon: "The Fruit Stand Guy Has a Nicer Cell Phone Than I Do" - A Comedic Reflection of the Crazy State of Technology 2009

Scrooge's abstemious gruel-eating lifestyle might have been applauded as a sign of godliness back in the days of the early bread-and-water saintly ascetic hermits, who lived in caves and said Bah!

Debtor's Prism Margaret Atwood 2008

Monsieur le Duc fetched her; and if he locked her up at Moncontour, and kept her on bread-and-water; for the rest of her life, I am sure he would serve her right.

The Newcomes 2006

As for that fair young creature, any change as long as it was change was pleasant to her; and for a week or two she would have liked poverty and a cottage, and bread-and-cheese; and, for a night, perhaps, a dungeon and bread-and-water, and so the move to

The History of Pendennis 2006

Inside was a flat loaf of penance-bread — of the sort that minor criminals condemned to bread-and-water punishments were forced to subsist on — and a waterskin.

The Outstretched Shadow 2003

As you know, Prodi is an economist, and so it was a very substantive discussion about some of the strategies that were discussed in the President's speech, in terms of reforming the international financial system, the kinds of changes to the bread-and-water institutions that the President talked about and that the G-22 are working on.

Readout On Bilateral With Prime Minister Prodi ITY National Archives 1998

Judea was bread-and-water poor then, I guess; populated by a scattering of downtrodden shepherds, and it surely was a far cry from their glory days in Temple Number One, but our friends apparently were busy and content.

Skinny Legs and All Robbins, Tom 1990

She's been told to stay there, that's all, with prayer and bread-and-water as company.

The Past Through Tomorrow Heinlein, Robert A. 1967