make sure

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

1. To ensure that something specific happens, is done etc., or of something happening.First known use 16th c.

   I'm going to make sure that I get to the interview on time.

   2 more examples

   I expected to be able to get to the interview on time, but I left home earlier than usual just to make sure.

   "We want to do everything we can to make sure everyone has a hassle-free journey.

   2022 January 26, “Network News: TSSA opposes ScotRail's booking office proposals”, in RAIL, number 949, page 28

   Synonyms: to it

2. To make oneself certain (of something, or that something is the case); to verify, to ascertain.First known use 17th c.

   Make sure of your sources before you publish.

   1 more example

   When you leave, make sure you have locked the door behind you.

   Synonyms: make certain, * see, make doubly sure

3. archaicTo feel certain of something; to be convinced.First known use 18th c.

   ‘I put my name to a bill for Fred; it was for a hundred and sixty pounds. He made sure he could meet it himself.’

   1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book III, chapter 24

   3 more examples

   “The gun!” said he. “I have thought of that,” said I, for I made sure he was thinking of a bombardment of the fort. “They could never get the gun ashore, and if they did, they could never haul it through the woods.”

   1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC

   "You—you said God would bring papa back, if I prayed to Him, and I did, Ann. I've asked God every day, and I've been expecting papa ever since, and when Jack brought the dinner to-day, I made sure he had come at last."

   1888, Emma Leslie, “Chapter 6”, in The Sunday at Home, Religious Tract Society, page 575

   'You won't stay? Not even for one night? Oh, but, Kate, there's so much to do. I made sure you'd both stay to help me,' Dot said, despair coursing through her at the thought of the solitary tasks ahead.

   2012, Judith Saxton, Family Feeling

4. obsoleteTo betroth.

   […] then his marriage shall be ſolemniz'd, / For wrote you not that I haue made him ſure / Vnto our Coſin, the Earle of Gloſters heire.

   1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act I]

   1 more example

   Women are borne, but to make fooles of men. She that's made sure to him, she loves not well, Her banes are ask'd here, but she wedds in hell; Parents that match their children gainst their will, Teach them not how to live, but how to kill.

   1631 (year of first performance), Thomas Dekker, The Wonder of a Kingdom, act V