Word.ws English Dictionary

make hay while the sun shines

make hay while the sun shines verb: to act while an opportunity exists; to take action while a situation is favorable.

Verb

make hay while the sun shines (third-person singular simple present makes hay while the sun shines, present participle making hay while the sun shines, simple past and past participle made hay while the sun shone)

  1. (idiomatic) To act while an opportunity exists; to take action while a situation is favorable.
    • Near-synonym: grasp the nettle
    • Until the mid-2010s, the ROSCOs 'made hay while the sun shone', taking advantage of growing passenger demand and expanding services to find homes for their rolling assets - in some cases, well beyond their expected design lives.2023 June 28, Ben Jones, “Are we getting rid of our (still useful) rolling stock too early?”, in RAIL, number 986, page 28
  2. (literal) To make hay during favourable (dry) weather.

make hay while the sun shines meaning in Hindi, Malayalam and Malay

make hay while the sun shines in Hindi

act while an opportunity exists
बहती गंगा में हाथ धोना bahtī gaṅgā mẽ hāth dhonā

make hay while the sun shines in Malayalam

make the most of an opportunity, take advantage of something, strike while the iron is hot
വെയിലുള്ളപ്പോൾ കച്ചി ഉണക്കുക, കാറ്റുള്ളപ്പോൾ തൂറ്റുക, പരമാവധി നേട്ടമാക്കിയെടുക്കുക, കഴിയുന്നത്ര ഗുണഫലം നേടിയെടുക്കുക, അവസരം മുതലാക്കുക, സന്ദർഭം പ്രയോജനപ്പെടുത്തുക

make hay while the sun shines in Malay

act while an opportunity exists
sediakan payung sebelum hujan

Synonyms of make hay while the sun shines

Forms of make hay while the sun shines

third-person singular presentmakes hay while the sun shines
present participlemaking hay while the sun shines
past participlemade hay while the sun shone
pastmade hay while the sun shone

Origin of make hay while the sun shines

Hay harvest can be spoiled by wet weather. It is important that farmers seize the opportunity of dry weather for haymaking tasks (cutting, drying, gathering), more so in medieval times, when forecasting the weather was more difficult. Attested since 1546, originally a Tudor expression, and used figuratively since 1673.

Questions about make hay while the sun shines

What does make hay while the sun shines mean?
Make hay while the sun shines means to act while an opportunity exists; to take action while a situation is favorable.
What is make hay while the sun shines in Hindi?
Make hay while the sun shines in Hindi is बहती गंगा में हाथ धोना (bahtī gaṅgā mẽ hāth dhonā). See Make hay while the sun shines meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is make hay while the sun shines?
Make hay while the sun shines is a verb.
What is the past tense of make hay while the sun shines?
The past tense of make hay while the sun shines is made hay while the sun shone.

Words near make hay while the sun shines in the dictionary

  1. make happen
  2. make hard work of
  3. make haste
  4. make haste slowly
  5. make hay
  6. make hay while the sun shines
  7. make head against
  8. make head nor tail of
  9. make head or tail of
  10. make headway
  11. make heavy going of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make hay while the sun shines (page history and authors); make hay while the sun shines (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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 hay while the sun shines.ogg.

Cite this entry: “make hay while the sun shines.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/make_hay_while_the_sun_shines. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.