make sense
Idioms-
Be understandable. This usage, first recorded in 1686, is often used in a negative context, as in This explanation doesn't make sense .
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Be reasonable, wise, or practical, as in It makes sense to find out first how many will attend the conference . This term employs sense in the meaning of “what is reasonable,” a usage dating from 1600. In Britain it is also put as stand to sense .
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.
Her concurrence is too cryptic, though, to be of much use to lower courts trying to make sense of Gorsuch’s maximalist rhetoric.
From Slate • Mar. 31, 2026
Regulatory developments have played a part in recent weeks but investors are also struggling to make sense of cryptos’ role in a landscape of mounting risks—is it a haven or not?
From Barron's • Mar. 31, 2026
Initial scrutiny from investors and the media centered on whether Kuvare somehow might be a related party, which didn’t make sense.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026
This is a key place where Roths might not make sense for some people, because you have to have the cash available to pay the tax.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 27, 2026
I pressed my ear to it and listened but it was hard to make sense of the tumult outside.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
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.
