苟延殘喘

- linger on with one's last breath of life; be on one's last legs; linger on in a steadily worsening condition; drag out one's feeble existence; eke out a living; eke out a meagre existence; linger on in the last days of one's life; merely prolong one's death throes; merely prolong panting; prolong one's moribund [feeble] life; remain alive for a little while, prolonging one's feeble existence; try to prolong one's exhausted panting; win some time in one's deathbed struggle