carve out

present singular third person carves out · participle present carving out · participle past carved out · past carved out

1. literallytransitiveTo hollow by carving.
2. figurativelytransitiveTo create (a reputation, chance, role, rank, career, victory) by hard work, or as if by cutting.

   I managed to carve out a niche for myself in the world of investigative journalism.

   4 more examples

   [Macbeth][…] with his brandished steel […] carved out his passage.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

   Fortunes were carved out of the property of the crown.

   1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XXIII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC

   Our movement's roots are intertwined with the movements for Black civil rights and Black power, movements which carved out the contexts, the language, the emotional, legal and strategic footprints for lesbians and gay men to follow in.

   1985 February 9, “Black History Month”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 29, page 4

   The hosts went close on several occasions with Victor Obinna and Robbie Keane impressive in the first half, yet they had trouble carving out many clear openings and the defeat leaves them at the bottom of the Premier League on goal difference, two points from safety.

   2011 February 6, Alistair Magowan, “West Ham 0 - 1 Birmingham”, in BBC

   Synonyms: forge