Word.ws English Dictionary

make-do

make-do adjective: improvised, makeshift.

Adjective

make-do (comparative more make-do, superlative most make-do)

  1. improvised, makeshift

Noun

make-do (plural make-dos)

  1. A temporary or makeshift expedient.
    • Even the play-acting of destructive power is only a run-through, or make-do, for the real thing, a way of familiarizing the participants to these roles when the real thing comes along.1980 April 12, Audre Lorde, “On The Erotic”, in Gay Community News, page 4

Synonyms of make-do

9 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of make-do

Adjective
comparativemore make-do
superlativemost make-do
Noun
pluralmake-dos

Origin of make-do

Deverbal from make do.

Questions about make-do

What does make-do mean?
Make-do means improvised, makeshift.
What part of speech is make-do?
Make-do can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near make-do in the dictionary

  1. make-before-break
  2. make-believe
  3. make-believes
  4. make-debate
  5. make-debates
  6. make-do
  7. make-dos
  8. make-fray
  9. make-frays
  10. make-good
  11. make-hawk

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make-do (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “make-do.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/make-do. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.