See Also: make(1)(page 1)(dictionary)
make(1)(page 2)(dictionary)
Make or Buy(money)
Make(medicine)
Make-up(money)
Make-up(finance)
make(2)(dictionary)
make(3)(dictionary)
make(4)(dictionary)
make-believe(dictionary)

make(1)(page 1) (iou)



make verb. .
[Old English macian = Old Frisian makia, Old Saxon makon (Dutch maken), Old High German mahhon (German machen), from West Germanic, from Germanic base meaning 'fitting'. Rel. to MATCH noun1.]
I.
verb trans. Produce by combination of parts or ingredients, by giving a certain form to matter, by extraction, or by modification of some other substance; construct, frame, fashion. (Foll. by of, out of, with.) OE.
R. Pecock God that made the world and alle thingis that ben in it. Goldsmith As birds sometimes are seen to make their nests. A. Ure The patent plan of Mr William Onions of making cast steel. P. Mortimer The factory made many things beside rope mats.
b. verb trans. spec. Produce (an article of food or drink) by culinary or other operations; put together and set alight materials for (a fire); set apart and prepare the site for (a garden, park, road, etc.). OE.
L. Hellman That night I was making her saffron rice. S. Harvester Who can make tea with a bloody bag like a lavendar sachet?
c. verb trans. & intrans. Compose, write as the author (a book, a poem, verses, etc., a letter, a work of a specified title); draw up (a legal document, esp. one's will). ME.
C. C. F. Greville In 1810 the king made another will. P. Kavanagh I make a lot of ballads. Punch He has made only a couple of dozen short stories.
d. verb intrans. Produce an article (for). Freq. in make or mend. M19.
verb trans. Cause the material or physical existence of; produce by action, bring about (a condition of things, a state of feeling); inflict (a wound); produce (a hole, a mark, a sound, etc.); create or take part in the creation of (a sound recording, film, etc.). OE.
make a commotion, make a fuss, make an impression, make a noise, make a sensation, make a stir, etc.
R. H. Mottram The shell had fallen..and made a hole the size of the midden at home. J. Rhys They made a hell of a row for a week. G. Priestland The car was sold to make room in the garage for rabbits. R. Ellmann Miles..made a small sketch of Wilde.
b. Foll. by double obj. (orig. dat. of the person) or to, unto: cause to happen to or fall to the lot of; cause to experience. OE-E18.
c. Grammar. Of a word: form (a certain case, tense, etc.) in a specified manner; change into (a specified form) when inflected. OE.
d. Establish (a rule, an ordinance); enact (a law); impose (a rate). Formerly also, found, institute (a religious order etc.); arrange, fix the time and place for (a match), institute (games). OE.
e. Prepare or provide (a meal, a feast) for guests; give (a dinner etc.). arch. OE.
f. Give rise to; have as a result or consequence; be the cause of. ME.
V. Woolf One word of affection..would have made all the difference. Day Lewis It made a stanza in my poem, 'The Innocent'. I. Murdoch He would have liked a coal-fire now, only it made so much work.
g. Bring (a crop etc.) to maturity, grow. US. E18.
h. Electricity. Complete or close (a circuit). Opp. break. M19.
verb trans.
a. Create by election, appointment, or ordination; appoint (an officer), ordain (a priest etc.). OE.
b. gen. Cause a person or persons to become (what is specified by the object). ME.
Ld Macaulay He..tried..to make as few enemies as possible. Juliette Huxley Oxford, where we had so naturally made many friends.
c. Fix (a price). Now only Commerce. LME.
d. Translate, render. E16-E17.
e. Nautical. Promote in rank. L18.
verb trans. Form by collection of individuals, get together (in early use spec. a party, a force, troops). ME.
verb trans. Foll. by of or (esp. in physical sense) out of: cause what is denoted by the object of the preposition to become what is denoted by the object of the verb; create (one thing) of or out of another; regard what is denoted by the object of the preposition as being what is denoted by the object of the verb, arrive at (a particular amount or quantity) as the result of calculation or estimation, assign (a meaning) to a statement, expression, representation, etc., or (a cause, motive, or reason) for actions or phenomena, (freq. with interrog. or indef. pronoun as object). ME.
make a habit of, make a practice of, etc. make an example of, make an exhibition of oneself, make a fool of (oneself), etc.
H. James I didn't know at first quite what to make of it. D. H. Lawrence Of her own kerchief she made a pad for the wound. M. Bradbury For the mass of men..you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. M. Warnock Jean Smith who made sense of my manuscript. T. Tanner Too much has perhaps been made of the notion that the English novel is obsessed with..class.
b. verb intrans. Foll. by of: (a) esteem (well, ill); (b) value highly, treat with great consideration. LME-E19.
verb trans. Produce from one's body or organically (now spec. urine, water, formerly also fruit, blossom); (now dial.) give birth to, beget. ME.
S. T. Warner Small proud boys making water against notices that say they're not to. L. Niven How many children do you expect to die before they grow to make children?
verb trans. Amount to; (of the latest item in an enumeration) bring up the sum to (a certain amount); be sufficient to constitute, be the essential criterion of, (in proverbial or quasi-proverbial uses, mainly in neg. contexts); avail (now rare) or signify (much, little, nothing, etc.). ME.
Shakespeare Anthony & Cleopatra The policy of that purpose made more in the marriage than the love of the parties. R. Lovelace Stone walls doe not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage. Defoe All which did not make thirty thousand men. L. Griffiths Because you are an instinctive entrepreneur you know that two plus two makes whatever you want.
b. verb trans. & intrans. Of arguments or evidence: avail (much, little, etc.) for, against (an opinion or a disputant). L16-E18.
verb trans.
a. Gain, acquire, or earn (money, reputation, etc.) by labour, business, etc. (foll. by of, out of); slang & dial. steal, acquire, manage to get; be sold for or fetch (a certain price). ME.
H. Roth He has a very good job and he makes good money. G. Millar Potatoes and onions I had 'made' from the food-dumps round Alexandria. C. Chaplin With my bonus I was making two hundred dollars a week. J. Gardam I'd say the lad took off somewhere and made his fortune. F. Wyndham He made quite a name for himself as an amateur jockey.
b. In Cards, win or take (a trick), play to advantage (a certain card), win the number of tricks that fulfils (a contract). M16.
c. In various games, secure a score of, score (a point, a run, etc.); (passing into sense 2f) play so as to enable another to score (a goal etc.). M16.
Rebound He made 47 and 41 points in the semi-final and final. Cricketer In the first 15 minutes of his innings, they made only four.
verb trans. Form within the mind; give conceptual existence or recognition to; entertain (a doubt, scruple, question, etc.) in the mind; formulate mentally. LME.
b. Formulate and set out (a case, a legal title, etc.). M19.
verb trans. Count as, have the position of, form, (a part or unit in an aggregate, a particular member in a series). LME.
Dickens To see that sort of people together, and to make one of 'em.
verb trans. Be the material or components of, constitute, be made or converted into, serve for; admit of being made into; (of a person) become by development or training, (with obj. a noun qualified by good, bad, etc.) perform (well, ill, etc.) the part or function of. LME.
W. Beckford They [frogs] make a good soup, and not a bad fricassee. J. Conrad The ridge of his backbone made a chain of small hills. Anthony Smith The last two quotations make particularly pertinent reading. M. Amis I was nice, extremely friendly, and would make a fine husband.
verb trans. Nautical. Descry or discern (as) from the top of a mast or tower; come in sight of. M16.
II. verb trans. Handle, manage, deal with in a particular way; bring to a specified condition, reduce to. OE-L17.
verb trans. Prepare (a bed) for sleeping in, arrange bedclothes on (a bed) for future use. Orig. branch I, as the noun meant not a permanent article of furniture, but a prepared place for rest, which does not exist until 'made'. ME.
verb trans. Shut, close, bar (a door). Long arch. & dial. ME.
verb refl. Get ready to do; prepare for. Chiefly Scot. LME-M17.
verb trans.
a. Hew or shape (timber); cut up (wood) into faggots or for firewood. dial. LME.
b. Prepare (fish) by curing or packing. E16.
c. Shuffle (cards) for dealing. L19.
verb trans. Effect or secure the success or advancement of; esp. endow (a person) with fortune or prosperity; render independent, set up (usu. in pass.). LME.
G. Berkeley What one man loses another gets..as many are made as ruined. O. Manning His voice is the very voice of Pandarus. He could make my production. S. Bellow A piece of research that made his reputation decades ago.
verb refl. & intrans. Prepare to go or proceed in a specified direction. LME.
Shetland Times We made towards her and when we got close we saw smoke and flames coming from the galley.
verb trans. Turn over and expose (hay or another crop) to the sun. LME.
Train (a hawk, a dog, a horse, for). LME.
III.
verb trans. Cause (another person, oneself, a thing) to be or become. As compl. noun, adjective, pa. pple (now chiefly known, acquainted, felt, heard, understood), pred. phr. OE.
I. Murdoch Please don't mention this..not till it's officially made public. A. S. Dale The fact that Scott is an uneven writer does not make him a bad one. J. Nagenda The grandmother started shrieking and it was impossible to make yourself heard. J. Berman She usually remains silent, making it difficult..to determine the extent of her knowledge.
b. verb trans. spec. With noun as compl.: appoint to the office of, raise to the dignity of; arch. transform, transmute, or fashion into (usu. in pass.); determine (a thing, occas. a person) to be, establish or set down as (a law, penalty, etc.), take as (one's business, abode, object, etc.). ME.
J. Wain If Ned had known..he'd have made it his business to help you. J. Rathbone After the battle of Talavera, Wellesley was made Viscount Wellington.
c. verb intrans. With adjective as compl.: cause oneself or another or something to be. ME.
verb trans. Regard (another person, oneself, a thing) as, consider or compute to be; describe or represent as; cause to appear as. As compl. noun, adjective, pa. pple, prep. phr. ME.
Dickens What time may you make it, Mr Twemlow? M. J. Guest Macbeth is not half so bad as the play makes him. E. Blishen What do you make the answer to Number 10, Johnson? A. Haley He was only seventeen when he had won the bird. That would make him around fifty-six or fifty-seven now. Janet Morgan Agatha made Hercule Poirot a retired Belgian police officer.
verb trans. Foll. by into: convert into something else; work on (materials) so as to produce something; arrange, divide, or combine so as to form. L16.
G. Gissing The shopman put them aside, to be made into a parcel. E. Jenks The wife and daughters of the shepherd..make the milk of the herds into butter and cheese. Observer Lambeth Palace is rather difficult to make into a home.
IV.
verb trans. Bring it about that. arch. OE.
verb trans. Cause or compel (a person or thing) to do something (foll. by do (now usu. only when both make and the dependent verb are in the active voice), to do (now usu. only when make is in the passive voice)); cause (a thing) to be done. ME.
E. Pound The snow makyth me to remember her. Scott Fitzgerald Wind..blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again. S. Chitty Gwen had..often made her carry the heavy sack of equipment. C. Peters He wanted to be made to write.
b. Compel or force (a person or thing). colloq. M17.
Times The enemy will not play the game..and there are none to make him.
verb trans.
a. Show or allege that. M-L16.
b. Consider, represent, or allege (a person or thing) to be, (to) do. L16.
E. A. Freeman Most of the Chronicles make Richard die in 1026.
verb trans. Recognize, identify. US Criminals' slang. E20.
V. Do, perform, accomplish: chiefly idiomatically with nouns of action.
verb trans.
a. Work (a miracle); commit (a sin, a crime, a fault), tell (a lie); do (justice, mercy); give (alms). OE-E18.
b. Wage (war). Formerly also, do (battle), join (a fight), take part in (a campaign). ME.
c. Enter into or conclude (a bargain, contract); (now Law) enter into a contract of (marriage). ME.
d. Go on (a journey etc.). ME.
make an excursion, make a tour, make a trip, make a voyage, etc.
e. Perform or execute (a bodily movement or gesture, e.g. one expressive of respect or of contempt); deliver orally (a speech). ME.
make a bow, make a curtsy, make a leg, etc.
verb trans. In questions introduced by an objective what: have as one's business or purpose, do (as what make you here?); (by inversion, as what makes you here?) cause to be or do. arch. ME.
verb trans. With nouns expressing the action of verbs (whether etymologically cognate or not) forming innumerable phrases approximately equivalent in sense to those verbs: see examples below and the nouns. ME.
make an acknowledgement, make an acquisition, make an advance, make an allegation, make (an) allowance, make (an) answer, make an appeal, make an appearance, make one's appearance, make (an) application, make an ascent, make an assault, make an assertion, make (an) assurance, make atonement, make an attack, make an attempt, make (an) avowal, make an award, make a beginning, make a bid, make a blunder, make a calculation, make a call, make a change, make (a) claim, make a climb, make a comment, make a comparison, make a complaint, make conversation, make a dash, make a defence, make delay, make a discovery, make a donation, make an endeavour, make an entrance, make an error, make (an) exception, make (an) excuse, make an experiment, make a find, make a gift, make a grant, make haste, make an incision, make (an) inquiry, make intercession, make a joke, make mention, make a mistake, make a move, make (an) objection, make an observation, make an offer, make (a) pretence, make (a) proclamation, make (a) profession, make progress, make a promise, make proof, make a proposal, make a protest, make provision, make a recovery, make a remark, make (a) reply, make (a) request, make resistance, make restitution, make (a) retreat, make a sacrifice, make a sale, make (a) search, make a shot, make a stand, make a start, make a surrender, make a transition, make a translation, make (a) trial, make use, make a venture, make a vow, etc.
verb trans. Offer, present, render, (now esp. amends, Law (chiefly US) a decision or judgement). Formerly spec., do (homage, fealty); pay (some mark of respect); render (support, aid); present (a person's compliments); propound (a question); give (an instance, notice, a reason, warning). Foll. by to or indirect obj. ME.
verb trans. Entertain or manifest (a specified emotion). ME-L16.
verb trans. Exert (an effort). LME.
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