make sense

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Audio (Mid-Atlantic)

  (file)

make sense (third-person singular simple present makes sense, present participle making sense, simple past and past participle made sense)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To be sensible, coherent, reasonable.

   Synonym: add up

   The thing doesn’t make sense to me.

   Somehow the combination didn’t make sense, but Cranston took it at face value, whatever that was worth.

   • 1980, ABBA (lyrics and music), “The Winner Takes It All”:

     I was in your arms
     Thinking I belonged there
     I figured it made sense
     Building me a fence

2. (intransitive, idiomatic, with of) To decipher or understand.

   Synonym: make head or tail of

   Can you make sense of her handwriting?

3. (informal) Used to express interest or desire in something; to be pleasing or beneficial; to work, be operative, or be advantageous to.

   Maybe we should take a break. I mean, our relationship just isn't making much sense anymore.

4. (generally negated, bodybuilding slang) To be in the realm of the ordinary, to be not particularly developed.

   Antonyms: ridiculous, absurd; see also Thesaurus:strapping

   If you want to grow spinal erectors that don’t make sense, you have to do a lot of bent-over compound lifts.

• → Dutch: sense maken
• → Icelandic: meika sens
• → Swedish: mejka sense