Jump to:

• make-or-break
  make-or-break

  adjective

  either completely successful or utterly disastrous.
• make or break
  make or break

  Cause either total success or total ruin, as in This assignment will make or break her as a reporter. This rhyming expression, first recorded in Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (1840), has largely replaced the much older (16th-century) alliterative synonym make or mar, at least in America.

make-or-break

American  

[meyk-er-breyk] / ˈmeɪk ərˈbreɪk /

adjective

1. either completely successful or utterly disastrous.

   a make-or-break marketing policy.

---

make or break Idioms  

1. Cause either total success or total ruin, as in This assignment will make or break her as a reporter. This rhyming expression, first recorded in Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (1840), has largely replaced the much older (16th-century) alliterative synonym make or mar, at least in America.

---

Etymology

Origin of make-or-break

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

Yet Mnuchin also isn’t anticipating “a make-or-break moment where one day we wake up and we can’t finance the debt,” he said Tuesday during a Bloomberg TV interview.

From MarketWatch • May 5, 2026

According to Katz, women - particularly those under 35 - are now emerging as a make-or-break demographic for the genre's biggest releases.

From BBC • Jan. 16, 2026

JPMorgan wanted the ability to walk away before the deal closed, a make-or-break item for the JPMorgan team that negotiated the deal.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 13, 2026

The first film is a make-or-break for many actors turned directors.

From Salon • Jan. 1, 2026

“You can’t forget, Clara. It’s make-or-break on our project.”

From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila