Word.ws English Dictionary

make a difference

make a difference verb: to carry out an action, the result of which is a significant change, or an altered circumstance.

Verb

make a difference (third-person singular simple present makes a difference, present participle making a difference, simple past and past participle made a difference)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To carry out an action, the result of which is a significant change, or an altered circumstance.
    • Near-synonym: move the needle
    • I was hoping that, by volunteering at this refuge, I could make a difference, however small.
    Synonyms:
    move the needle
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To be of importance; to matter.
    • I don't think it makes a difference whether you come tonight or not.
    • Increasingly, it does not make a difference—economically, at least—whether the husband or wife is the primary wage earner, or whether either or both of them work.2013, Debora L. Spar, Wonder Women, page 114

make a difference meaning in Hindi, Bengali and Kannada

make a difference in Hindi

to make a difference
अंतर करना antar karnā

make a difference in Bengali

গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হওয়া, প্রভাব ফেলা

make a difference in Kannada

ಭೇದವೆಣಿಸು, ವ್ಯತ್ಯಾಸತೋರು

Synonyms of make a difference

Forms of make a difference

third-person singular presentmakes a difference
present participlemaking a difference
past participlemade a difference
pastmade a difference

Words formed from make a difference

Questions about make a difference

What does make a difference mean?
Make a difference means to carry out an action, the result of which is a significant change, or an altered circumstance.
What is make a difference in Hindi?
Make a difference in Hindi is अंतर करना (antar karnā). See Make a difference meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is make a difference?
Make a difference is a verb.
What is the past tense of make a difference?
The past tense of make a difference is made a difference.

Words near make a difference in the dictionary

  1. make a clean breast
  2. make a dash for it
  3. make a day of it
  4. make a decision
  5. make a dent
  6. make a difference
  7. make a dollar out of fifteen cents
  8. make a face
  9. make a fist of
  10. make a fool of
  11. make a fool out of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make a difference (page history and authors); अंतर करना (Hindi) (page history and authors); make a difference (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); make a difference (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-make a difference.ogg.

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