Word.ws English Dictionary

make it so

make it so verb: to cause something to be the case, to cause something to happen.

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To cause something to be the case, to cause something to happen.
    • "It's twelve o'clock, sir" said the master, touching his hat, with his quadrant in his hand. "Make it so, and pipe to dinner."1832, Frederick Marryat, Newton Forster or, the Merchant Service, page 74
    • Riker: I suggest we beam a section aboard for analysis.

Forms of make it so

third-person singular presentmakes it so
present participlemaking it so
past participlemade it so
pastmade it so

Origin of make it so

Originally an imperative phrase used by British naval officers as a command, dating from no later than the Napoleonic Wars, and perhaps earlier. Popularized as the catchphrase of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994).

Questions about make it so

What does make it so mean?
Make it so means to cause something to be the case, to cause something to happen.
What part of speech is make it so?
Make it so is a verb.
What is the past tense of make it so?
The past tense of make it so is made it so.

Words near make it so in the dictionary

  1. make it make sense
  2. make it one's business
  3. make it one's life
  4. make it rain
  5. make it snappy
  6. make it so
  7. make it so that
  8. make it up as one goes along
  9. make it up to
  10. make known
  11. make land

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make it so (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 it so.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/make_it_so. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.