make good

present singular third person makes good · participle present making good · participle past made good · past made good

1. idiomaticintransitiveTo achieve substantial success in life, often in business.

   Near-synonym: come good

   5 more examples

   America does vaguely feel a man making good as something analogous to a man being good or a man doing good.

   1925, Gilbert K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America, page 94

   Some of the Cubans who come to this country hoping to make good may be in for a shock. Would those 1,400 Cuban exiles already locked up have left Cuba — where jobs, education and health care are available to all, and where no laws against homosexuality exist — had they known they would end up in U.S. federal prisons, isolated from other prisoners and without benefit of trial?

   1980 August 16, Karen Franklin, “Not Too Distant”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 5, page 4

   The moment DJay becomes a rapper, the moment he becomes an artist, is linked to his own understanding of what hip hop was about when Skinny Black, his idol, a local homeboy who made good as a rapper, was “blowing up."

   2007, Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip-Hop

   He [Eisenhower] was their own, the boy who made good.

   2012, Robert Wuthnow, Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America's Heartland, page 200

   As she told Playboy in 1958, “I realized some time ago that as long as there were men in this world, I’d make good.”

   2025 September 11, Alex Williams, quoting June Wilkinson, “June Wilkinson, Pinup Star and Screen Siren, Is Dead at 85”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

   Synonyms: come good

2. intransitivetransitivewith onTo complete successfully; to fulfil (a promise).

   He made good on his threat to jump from a second-story window.

   2 more examples

   He made good his threat and made good his escape by jumping from a second-story window.

   The Bank of the Commonwealth suspension resulted from overcertifying the checks of its former president, Edward Haight, to the amount of $225,000, of which Mr. Haight could only make good $60,000.

   1996, Eugene Nelson White, Stock Market Crashes and Speculative Manias, page 225

3. gamblingTo match the first player's bet with one's own, rather than dropping out.

   After all the players who determine to go in have made good the bet of the player who opened the Jack Pot, and the hands have been filled […]

   1885, William Brisbane Dick, The American Hoyle: Or, Gentleman's Hand-book of Games

4. intransitivetransitivewith onTo remedy or compensate for (a defect or deficiency).

   The company made good the damage by paying my repair costs.

   2 more examples

   The company made good on the damage by paying my repair costs.

   By a remarkable piece of railway reconstruction work on the part of the Allied Forces—mainly South African railway construction troops—mines laid along the track by the retreating enemy were removed by sappers, and the German damage made good, within 7 days.

   1944 March and April, “The Western Desert Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 73

5. idiomaticTo make (a surface) level or even.

   […] the only action that will be required prior to decoration will be to wash down, make good and apply a fresh paint system.

   2005, Roy Hughes, Painting and Decorating, page 44