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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In order to make one's way amid these turbulent and conflicting waves, it was necessary to be an officer, a great noble, or a pretty woman.
From The Three Musketeers by Dumas père, Alexandre
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.