make ends meet

Cultural  

1. To earn enough income to provide for basic needs: “The workers complained that on their present wages they could hardly make ends meet, let alone enjoy any luxuries.”

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make ends meet Idioms  

1. Manage so that one's financial means are enough for one's needs, as in On that salary Enid had trouble making ends meet. This expression originated as make both ends meet, a translation from the French joindre les deux bouts (by John Clarke, 1639). The ends, it is assumed, allude to the sum total of income and expenditures. However, naval surgeon and novelist Tobias Smollett had it as “make the two ends of the year meet” (Roderick Random, 1748), thought to go back to the common practice of splicing rope ends together in order to cut shipboard expenses.

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Example Sentences

It’s bad enough to feel like you can’t easily make ends meet anymore.

From Salon

“My grandmother struggled to make ends meet when her husband died in a mining accident, making her a widow with three kids still in grade school,” the person wrote.

From MarketWatch

In order to make ends meet, Selena y Los Dinos would perform on street corners, family parties and other social functions.

From Los Angeles Times

The governor has also talked about growing up watching his mother struggle to make ends meet, and how oil executive Gordon Getty and his wife, Ann, gave him experiences his parents could not afford, including an African safari when he was a teen.

From Los Angeles Times

It needs to be said that Green’s approach differs from those articles that regularly appear asking us to commiserate with families earning $400,000 or $500,000 because they can’t make ends meet.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• collect
• conserve
• keep
• maintain
• manage
• spare
• store