Dictionary.com

Popular Searches

 Thesaurus.com
Synonyms

make ends meet

Cultural  

  1. To earn enough income to provide for basic needs: “The workers complained that on their present wages they could hardly make ends meet, let alone enjoy any luxuries.”

make ends meet Idioms  

  1. Manage so that one's financial means are enough for one's needs, as in On that salary Enid had trouble making ends meet. This expression originated as make both ends meet, a translation from the French joindre les deux bouts (by John Clarke, 1639). The ends, it is assumed, allude to the sum total of income and expenditures. However, naval surgeon and novelist Tobias Smollett had it as “make the two ends of the year meet” (Roderick Random, 1748), thought to go back to the common practice of splicing rope ends together in order to cut shipboard expenses.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Buffalo, N.Y., native Kelly McCoy had been struggling to make ends meet on her $80,000 salary as an insurance analyst until she moved to Albania in the summer of 2024 to take advantage of its American visa.

From The Wall Street Journal

Households struggling to make ends meet have fallen behind on energy payments, leading to a collective debt to suppliers of well over £4bn.

From BBC

"Everything is there. I was stuck here," he told AFP in Karachi, near the well-known Bengali market where he peddles desiccated fish and prawns to make ends meet for $7 to $9 per day.

From Barron's

She struggles to make ends meet.

From BBC

“There are so many stories of teachers working two or three jobs because they are trying to figure out how to pay for their healthcare and how they are going to make ends meet,” Vaccaro said.

From The Wall Street Journal

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.