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manage

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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From Early Modern English manage, menage, from Middle English *manage, *menage, from Old French manege (“the handling or training of a horse, horsemanship, riding, maneuvers, proceedings”), probably from Old Italian maneggiare (“to handle, manage, touch, treat”), ultimately from Latin manus (“the hand”); see manual.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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manage (third-person singular simple present manages, present participle managing, simple past and past participle managed)

  1. (transitive) To direct or be in charge of.
    Even though Jack is a novice, he manages his team with great success.
    • 1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 750:
      Interlaken East station is jointly owned with the standard gauge Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon Railway from Bern and Thun and the Swiss Federal Railways metre-gauge Brünig line from Lucerne, but is managed and staffed by the Bernese Oberland group.
  2. (transitive) To handle or control (a situation, job).
    The government managed the inflation very poorly.
  3. (transitive) To handle with skill, wield (a tool, weapon etc.).
  4. (intransitive) To succeed at an attempt in spite of difficulty. [with infinitive]
    He managed to climb the tower.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.
    • 2013 November 30, Paul Davis, “Letters: Say it as simply as possible”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8864:
      Congratulations on managing to use the phrase “preponderant criterion” in a chart (“On your marks”, November 9th). Was this the work of a kakorrhaphiophobic journalist set a challenge by his colleagues, or simply an example of glossolalia?
    1. (ironic) To end up doing something that could or should have been avoided.
      She somehow managed to sit on the wet paint.
      • 2020 November 24, PA Media, “Swindon Town 0-1 Lincoln City”, in BBC Sport‎[1], archived from the original on 2022-10-21:
        Despite that, Swindon should have been level in stoppage time, but Mathieu Baudry somehow managed to put a free header over the crossbar from point-blank range.
  5. (transitive, intransitive) To achieve (something) without fuss, or without outside help.
    It's a tough job, but I'll manage.
    • 2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
      Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.
  6. (transitive) To manage to say; to say while fighting back embarrassment, laughter, etc.
    "That's nice, dear!", she managed.
  7. (transitive) To train (a horse) in the manège; to exercise in graceful or artful action.
  8. (obsolete, transitive) To treat with care; to husband.
    • 1673, John Dryden, “Prologue”, in Marriage à la Mode:
      [She] […] manages her last half-crown with care,
      And trudges to the Mall, on foot
  9. (obsolete, transitive) To bring about; to contrive.

Synonyms

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  • (To handle with skill, wield): bewield
  • (to accomplish (something difficult/unexpected)): contrive

Derived terms

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Terms derived from manage (verb)
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Terms etymologically related to manage (verb)

Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

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manage (uncountable)

  1. (now rare) The act of managing or controlling something.
  2. (equestrianism) Manège.
    • 1622, Henry Peacham (Jr.), The Compleat Gentleman:
      You must draw [the horse] in his career with his manage, and turn, doing the corvetto, leaping &c..

See also

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Middle English

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Noun

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manage

  1. Alternative form of menage
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