live and breathe through

RinoMy dictionaries have entries for "live and breathe (something)," but not for "live and breathe through (something)." Do they mean the same thing?If so, can we say "I live and breathe through my children" or "I am living and breathing through my children"?

I have never heard that as an idiom: simply, 'I live through...'.

You can't live and breathe through anything. Idiomatic expressions have a fixed form: Andy Warhol lived and breathed art. My uncle is a prominent attorney who lives and breathes the law.

You can say that you live through your children, which is a confession that you do not have a life of your own but feel their failures and triumphs as if they were your own.

You can "live and breathe" something to mean that's all you do (or just about). It is their constant activity or what they are constantly thinking about.

Sometimes I think my daughter lives and breathes Minecraft.
He lives and breathes fantasy baseball.

Thank you, Mister Micawber, enoon and BarbaraPA.

This (non-existent) idiom with "through" is used in an article written by a non-native English (but professional) writer. Maybe I should ask her what she wanted to say... (sigh)

I really love this forum, by the way.
Again, thank you.

Rino

Rino. Maybe I should ask her what she wanted to say... (sigh)

I think she just wanted to say 'live through' = live vicariously via.

Thank you for further responses.

I firstly thought she meant "live and breathe" because all my dictionaries say "live through" means to endure something or to survive an unpleasant or dangerous time of one's life. Then, reading your answers and explanations, I clearly understood there is another usage of that idiom. (According to my dictionaries, it should be "live one's life through," bu

RinoAccording to my dictionaries, it should be "live one's life through,"

'One's life' can be (and usually is?) omitted.

Good morning.

Mister Micawber'One's life' can be (and usually is?) omitted.

That's a point I've been wondering these days.

When I cannot be sure about the meaning of a verb, the first thing I consider is if it is a transitive verb or an intransitive verb. Some teachers say the object can be omitted when it is obvious, but others say like "this verb must

You should become aware that many verbs can be both transitive and intransitive, that is all. 'Live' is normally intransitive. 'Live one's life' is a sort of transitive structure whose term I have forgotten, but which exists also in such phrases as 'to see a sight' and 'to think a thought'.