make-or-break

[ meyk-er-breyk ]

adjective

1. either completely successful or utterly disastrous:

   a make-or-break marketing policy.

Word History and Origins

Origin of make-or-break¹

First recorded in 1915–20

Idioms and Phrases

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.

Example Sentences

Sunday's episode illustrated both the peril and the promise of Homeland's make-or-break moment.

From The Daily Beast

What I do deny, vigorously, is that this is a make-or-break moment.

From The Daily Beast

No one seemed to expect Jon Tester to pull it out, but it was no longer a make-or-break race.

From The Daily Beast

Spain is reeling precariously, Greece is prepping for another make-or-break election—and Germany is still insisting on austerity.

From The Daily Beast

The southern provinces are where the make-or-break struggle for Afghanistan's Pashtuns is taking place.

From The Daily Beast