make sure meaning: definition, quotations

make sure

verb

To ensure that something specific happens, is done etc., or of something happening.

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

1 more example

"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:

To make oneself certain (of something, or that something is the case); to verify, to ascertain.

Archaic To feel certain of something; to be convinced.

“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:
‘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:

2 more examples

"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:

Obsolete To 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]:
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: