to make ends meet
56
3.5
- phrasal verb
- /meɪk ɛndz miːt/
- Informal
:
llegar a fin de mes
- By contrast, some low-wage workers will scramble to work longer hours or multiple jobs just to make ends meet.
- struggle to make ends meet
- work to make ends meet
- jobs to make ends meet
This follows a mother who is trying to make ends meet living in Seoul.
- This follows a mother who is trying to make ends meet living in Seoul.
- How hard is that for you when you're trying to make ends meet?
- They're struggling to make ends meet and they hate having to take on these extra jobs.
- You know, like his poor father who couldn't make ends meet.
- Low income, always struggling to make ends meet.
- We have millions of people who work every day and can't make ends meet.
- So in most of my formative years, my mom was just trying to make ends meet.
- And I lived among extreme poverty, dirt floors, mud huts, people not knowing how they're going to make ends meet day-to-day.
- you know, It's so desperate. You know that these guys are not business people. They're struggling. They, they can't make ends meet.
- As people are dying, as people are trying to figure out how to make ends meet, as people are trying to stay in their homes, life and death is happening.
- He eliminated price controls and subsidies that made public transit, heating bills and groceries cheaper, leaving more people struggling to make ends meet.
- But at various points of my parents lives, they worked two jobs to make ends meet.
- You know, you're you're, you're not making ends meet with your bills.
Examples
-
Mr. Andrews worked at a local auto-repair shop and, people said, could barely make ends meet.
Fiction book (2001) -
Trino's mother is a single parent with two jobs, but finds it difficult to make ends meet.
Academic text (2009) -
How else was I to make ends meet?
-
And what do you do to make ends meet?
-
I figure I can make ends meet.
-
I had to do something to make ends meet.
-
But ordinary people in Europe and in the US cannot make ends meet, right?
-
Now she was on disability, and it was hard to make ends meet and to have hope.
Fiction book (1999) -
Most Hungarians, however, now work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.
Academic text (1991) -
Many families are struggling to make ends meet during the economic downturn.
Synonyms
425
2.7
Manage to live on very little money
74
2.3
Provide enough money to cover regular living costs like rent and food
49
3.7
Use what you have even if it is not enough
38
2.8
To earn enough money to support yourself or your family
33
2.2
To make money to support yourself
25
2.2
To earn money by having a job
10
5.1
To manage to live with very little money
1
5.8
Live with only enough money for basic needs
Do enough work, paid or not, to pay for food and a place to live
Live with difficulty because you have little money
Antonyms
How Well-off
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to manage financially' is not directly predictable from the literal meanings of 'make', 'ends', and 'meet' because 'ends' here is a metaphor for obligations or needs rather than literal terminations. However, the mental image of bringing 'ends' together to 'meet' gives a partial, metaphorical clue and many languages use similar metaphors, so learners may partially infer the meaning but not fully without exposure.
Etymology
Make ends meet may come from sewing or rope work, where you must bring the two ends of a piece of cloth or rope together so it is enough. If the ends do not meet, you do not have enough material, so the phrase came to mean 'to manage on the money you have'.