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• 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.

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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.

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Etymology

Origin of make-or-break

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

“Apple trialling its M7 on Intel’s 18A-P will be a turnaround moment for Intel’s foundry ambitions. But yield matters more than nodes. Matching TSMC’s manufacturing consistency will be the make-or-break factor,” Counterpoint Research analysts wrote.

From Barron's • Jun. 17, 2026

And you know that make-or-break conversation you've been meaning to have about the state of your marriage - don't have that today.

From BBC • Jun. 13, 2026

“It’s close to a make-or-break strategic test ... just to see if the modern ‘Star Wars’ is still viable theatrically.”

From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2026

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

“This is the make-or-break moment,” the mystery woman with the hidden face said to Mom and Dad, as if Max wasn’t right there listening.

From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix