make one's way
Idioms-
Go in a particular direction or to a particular destination, as in I'm making my way to the china department , or How are we going to make our way through this underbrush? This usage was first recorded about 1400.
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Also, make one's own way . Advance in life by one's own efforts, His family hasn't much money so he'll just have to make his own way in the world . [c. 1600]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I was thinking about Butler’s grandmother moving, having this chicken farm, and then her granddaughter becoming a well-known author and just that progression of trying to make one’s way in a place.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2023
Bercow reintroduced to popular British lexicon the word “beetled,” meaning to make one’s way hurriedly, as in: Say it, sort it and move on.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 31, 2019
But in a way, we've all become "budget travelers," because although it might be harder nowadays to make one's way across Europe on 20 bucks a day, getting there has never been cheaper.
From Salon ● Feb. 3, 2011
Intellectuals have forgotten, or else they never understood, how difficult it is to make one's way up from a low economic level, to assert one's will in a great crude way.
From Time Magazine Archive
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It164 would have been a ticklish business to make one's way along the deck then, he thought.
From Tom Slade with the Colors by Clarity, Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.