make both ends meet

present singular third person makes both ends meet · participle present making both ends meet · participle past made both ends meet · past made both ends meet

1. uncommonSynonym of make ends meet.

   (entry on Archbishop Edmund Grindall) Worldly wealth he cared not for, desiring only to make both ends meet; and as for that little that lapped over he gave it to pious uses.

   1661, Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England

   1 more example

   Do you know what it is to be poor? Not poor with the arrogant poverty complained of by certain people who have five or six thousand a year to live upon, and who yet swear they can hardly manage to make both ends meet, but really poor, […]

   1895, Marie Corelli, The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, published 1896, →OCLC, page 5

   Synonyms: make ends meet