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make ends meet

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.”

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Idioms and Phrases

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.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

As his business has struggled during the last two years, he has turned to other types of outings to make ends meet, including fishing for rockfish, leading whale-watching trips and holding burials at sea where mourners scatter the ashes of loved ones.

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Marie Curie said gaps in care meant "too many people are spending their final days isolated, in pain, and struggling to make ends meet".

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People are living their final days "isolated, in pain and struggling to make ends meet" due to gaps in end-of-life care, a leading charity has said.

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Olympic gold medallist Jack Laugher created his own OnlyFans account in 2024 to "make ends meet".

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Margaret, who is retired, told BBC London she had had to sell her jewellery to make ends meet.

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Related Words

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make-do make eyes at

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