make a splash

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

To attract attention or cause a sensation

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Thu hút sự chú ý hoặc gây ra một sự kiện đặc biệt

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: create a splash of water
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

42,000 tons of rubble fail to make a splash
Not having a swimming pool, the boys merely had occasional periods at the Town Baths, and were unlikely to make any great splash in the swimming championships.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “make a splash” mean?

To attract attention or cause a sensation Literally: create a splash of water

Is “make a splash” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.