Learning a New Word

This is a short post about a new word I learned. Or at least, that I looked into. I stumbled upon an article about holiday tipping. There was a section about how for some people, tipping is actual income, and not just a bonus, like servers and drivers and the like.

The writer stated said:
"This is a very important factor to consider since an issue of livelihood is at stake. For folks whose jobs pay less than standard, tipping doesn't mean luxury; it means subsistence."

Now if I was making this statement, I wouldn't say subsistence. I would say sustenance. So I set out to find out what was more correct.

Here is the most important definition I've found so far. One of dictionary.com's definitions says that subsistence is "the providing of sustenance or support." Another is "existence."
Sustenance is "means of sustaining life; nourishment" or "means of livelihood."

When I initially did a thesaurus check in Word, subsistence had a single synonym--existence. If that was the only definition, then I would disagree with the author, because tipping does not mean existence, it just means "means of sustaining life" or "nourishment." It's a stretch to say that without temporary "means of sustaining life," one will cease to exist. Especially if you're in the service industry. There are other similar places to go and get jobs. You know that if you don't get tipped you're not going to die, you're just going to have to make adjustments.

BUT, to be fair I continued my definition search and found that subsistence can be "the providing of sustenance or support." SO, my conclusion is that either word is usable.

I still lean toward sustenance.
Tipping = sustenance = means of sustaining life
Tipping = subsistence = providing of means of sustaining life

Subsistence just seems unnecessary here.