make-or-break
[ meyk-er-breyk ]
/ ˈmeɪk ərˈbreɪk /
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adjective
either completely successful or utterly disastrous: a make-or-break marketing policy.
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Origin of make-or-break
First recorded in 1915–20
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use make-or-break in a sentence
Other Idioms and Phrases with 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.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.