make sure
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English
[edit]Verb
[edit]make sure (third-person singular simple present makes sure, present participle making sure, simple past and past participle made sure)
- To ensure that something specific happens, is done etc., or of something happening. [from 16th c.]
- I'm going to make sure that I get to the interview on time.
- I expected to be able to get to the interview on time, but I left home earlier than usual just to make sure.
- 2022 January 26, “Network News: TSSA opposes ScotRail's booking office proposals”, in RAIL, number 949, page 28:
- "We want to do everything we can to make sure everyone has a hassle-free journey.
- To make oneself certain (of something, or that something is the case); to verify, to ascertain. [from 17th c.]
- When you leave, make sure you have locked the door behind you.
- Make sure of your sources before you publish.
- (now rare) To feel certain of something; to be convinced. [from 18th c.]
- 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
- “The gun!” said he.
“I have thought of that,” said I, for I made sure he was thinking of a bombardment of the fort. “They could never get the gun ashore, and if they did, they could never haul it through the woods.”
- 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book III, chapter 24:
- ‘I put my name to a bill for Fred; it was for a hundred and sixty pounds. He made sure he could meet it himself.’
- 1888, Emma Leslie, “Chapter 6”, in The Sunday at Home, Religious Tract Society, page 575:
- "You—you said God would bring papa back, if I prayed to Him, and I did, Ann. I've asked God every day, and I've been expecting papa ever since, and when Jack brought the dinner to-day, I made sure he had come at last."
- 2012, Judith Saxton, Family Feeling:
- 'You won't stay? Not even for one night? Oh, but, Kate, there's so much to do. I made sure you'd both stay to help me,' Dot said, despair coursing through her at the thought of the solitary tasks ahead.
- (obsolete) To betroth.
- 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act I]:
- […] then his marriage shall be ſolemniz'd, / For wrote you not that I haue made him ſure / Vnto our Coſin, the Earle of Gloſters heire.
- 1631 (year of first performance), Thomas Dekker, The Wonder of a Kingdom, act V:
- Women are borne, but to make fooles of men.
She that's made sure to him, she loves not well,
Her banes are ask'd here, but she wedds in hell;
Parents that match their children gainst their will,
Teach them not how to live, but how to kill.
Synonyms
[edit]- make certain
- make doubly sure
- (ensure): see to it
Translations
[edit]to verify
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