To make a man walk Spanish
To give him the sack; to give him his discharge.
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to make a ring
To combine in order to con- trol the price of a given article. If the chief merchants of any article (say salt flour, . or sugar) combine, they can fix the selling price, and thus secure enormous profits.
to make a short board
To make a short tack. "To make short boards," to tack frequently.
to make a virtue of necessity
To "grin and bear it"; what can't be cured must be en- dured.
to make an ass of oneself
To do something very foolish. To expose oneself to ridicule.
to make away with
To put or take out of the way, run off with; to squander; also to murder; to make away with oneself is to commit suicide.
to make capital out of
To turn to account : thus, in politics, one party is always ready to make political capital out of the errors of the other.
to make common cause
To work for the same object. Here "cause" is the legal term, meaning pro or con, as it may be, the cause or side of the question advocated.
to make dole
To lament, to mourn. Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole over them that all the be- holders take his part with weeping. — As You Like Itr i,2.
to make ends meet
To make one's income cover expenses; to keep out of debt.
to make faces
To make grimaces with the face. To put a bold, or a good, face on the matter. To make the best of a bad matter; to bear up under something disagreeable.
to make fair weather
To flatter, conciliate, make the best of things. But I must make fair weather yet awhile, Till Henry be more weak, and I more strong. 2 Henry VI, v, 1.
to make for
To conduce; as, "His actions make for peace"; also to move towards; hence, in slang use, to attack.
to make free with
To take liberties with; to treat whatever it is as one's own.
to make good
To fulfil one's promises or to come up to expectations, to succeed.
to make horns at
To thrust out the fist with the first and fourth fingers extended, the others doubled in. This ancient gesture, now more common in Latin countries than in England,, was employed as an insult to the person at whom it was directed, as implying that he was a cuckold.
to make it
To succeed in catching a train, keeping an appointment, etc.
to make light of
To treat as of no impor- tance; to take little notice of. Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fathngs are killed, and all things are ready; come unto the marriage.
to make merry
To be jovial, festive; to make merry over, to treat with amusement or ridicule, to make fun of.
to make mincemeat of
Utterly to demolish ; to shatter to pieces. Mincemeat is meat minced, i.e.
to make nothing of
To fail to understand; not to succeed in some operation. Nourmahal (noor ma hal') (Arab., The Light of the Harem). One of the women in the harem of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, afterwards called Nourjehan (Light of the World). The story of her love for Selim and how she regained his lost affections by means of a love- spell is told in Moore's Lalla Rookh.
to make one sing another tune
To make him change his behaviour altogether; make him recant what he has said.
to make one's beard
To have one wholly at your mercy, as a barber has when holding a man's beard to dress it, or shaving the chin of a customer, So, to be able to do what you like with one, to outwit or delude him.
to make one's jack
To be successful. The allusion is to the jack in games, such as bowls.
to make one's mark
To distinguish oneself. To write one's name (or make one's mark) on the page of history.
to make oneself at home
To dispense with ceremony in another person's house, to act as though one were at home.
to make rings round one
To defeat him com- pletely in some sport or competition, etc.; to outclass him easily.
to make short work of it
To dispose of it quickly, to deal summarily with it.
to make someone open his eyes
To surprise him very much, and make him stare with wonder or admiration.
to make the bed
To arrange it and make it fit for use. In America this sense of "make" is more common than it is with us. "Your room is made," arranged in due order.
to make the door
To make it fast by shutting and bolting it. Why at this time the doors are made against you. — Comedy of Errors, iii, 1.
to make tracks
To hurry away. What make you here? What do you want? What are you come here for?
to mean business
To be determined to carry out one's project; to be in earnest.
to measure strength
To wrestle together; to fight, to contest.
to measure swords
To try whether or not one is strong enough or sufficiently equally matched to contend against another. The phrase is from duelling, in which the seconds measure the swords to see that both are of one length.
to melt
To spend. Will you melt a borde? will you spend a shilling? The cull melted a couple of decusses upon us; the gentleman spent a couple of crowns upon us. CANT.
to milk the pigeon
To endeavour at impossibilities.
to monkey with
To tamper with or play mischievous tricks. To monkey with the cards is to try to arrange them so that the deal will not be fair; to monkey with the milk is to add water to it and then sell it as pure and unadulterated.
to mount the cockade
To become a soldier. Cockaigne, Land of (kok anO- An imaginary land of idleness and luxury, famous in mediaeval story, and the subject of more than one poem, one of which, an early translation of a 13th-century French work, is given in Ellis's Specimens of Early English Poets. In this "the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing.
to mouth one's words
To talk affectedly or pompously; to declaim. He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone. CHURCHILL: The Rosciad, 322.
to mushroom
To expand into a mushroom shape; said especially of certain _ soft-nosed rifle-bullets used in big-game shooting, or of a dense cloud of smoke that spreads out high in the sky.
to nail to the counter
To convict and expose as false or spurious; as, "I nailed that lie to the counter at 9nce." From the custom of shopkeepers nailing to the counter false money that is passed to them as a warning to others.
to name the day
To fix the day of the wedding — which is a privilege belonging to the bride to be.
to nap
To cheat at dice by securing one chance. Also to catch the venereal disease. You've napt it; you are infected.
to nick the nick
To hit the exact moment. Tallies used to be called "nicksticks." Hence, to make a record of anything is "to nick it down," as publicans nick a score on a tally.
to nim
To steal or pilfer: from the German nemen, to take. Nim a togeman; steal a cloak.
to nip in the bud
To destroy before it has had time to develop; usually said of bad habits, tendency to sin, etc. Shakespeare has — The third day comes a frost, a killing frost; And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. Henry VIII, iii, 2.
to no avail
With no success or effect
to nose
To give evidence. To inform. His pall nosed and he was twisted for a crack; his confederate turned king's evidence, and he was hanged for burglary.
to null
To beat: as, He nulled him heartily.
to nurse
To cheat: as, they nursed him out of it. An estate in the hands of trustees, for the payment of bdebts, is said to be at nurse.
to oil the knocker
To fee the porter. The expression is from Racine's Les Plaideurs: "On rfentre point chez lui sans graisser le marteaiT' ("No one enters his house without oiling the knocker").
to one's heart's content
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
to one's mind
to one's recollection or thinking
to open one's mouth wide
To name too high a price; to strain after too big a prize.
to open the ball
To lead off the first dance at a balL To strike the ball under the line. To fail in one's object. The allusion is to tennis, in which a line is stretched in the middle of the court, and the players standing on each side have to send the ball aver the line.
to overflowing
completely full, exceeding capacity
to pack up
Slang for to take one's de- parture; to have no more to do with the matter; also to die.
to paint the lion
A sailor's term, meaning to strip a person naked and then smear the body all over with tar.
to paint the town red
To have a gay, noisy time; to cause some disturbance in town by having a noisy spree. Possibly from the fre- quent firing of towns by Indians on the war- path.
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