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

His side will be required to win two play-off games for that to happen, but they will approach those make-or-break matches in March with renewed optimism after a rollercoaster qualifying campaign.

Read more on BBC

As with “Born to Run”’s make-or-break release six years earlier, the early 1980s find Springsteen at a crossroads.

Read more on Salon

For many cruise passengers, the make-or-break aspect of a trip is the food and drinks.

Read more on MarketWatch

Being on the front end of projects has given Arden a window onto how make-or-break artistic decisions are made.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Though “Sinners” is far from the determined indie film that “Fruitvale Station” was, trades are responding to Coogler’s latest as though the opening weekend is a make-or-break moment for the film.

Read more on Salon