What does the word subsist mean?

Usage examples for subsist

  1. Domestic cats often run away to the woods and subsist on their own hunting; but these are not to be taken for the real wild cat. – Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals by R. Lee
  2. He then expressed his concern at the difference which he found to subsist between the Secretary of the Treasury and myself, of which he said he had not been aware. – Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson by Thomas Jefferson
  3. How beautiful, he said, to subsist on the sun and the dust. – Romance Island by Zona Gale