make sure

Verb

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

1. 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.

   Synonyms:

   to it

2. To make oneself certain (of something, or that something is the case); to verify, to ascertain.
   • When you leave, make sure you have locked the door behind you.
   • Make sure of your sources before you publish.

   Synonyms:

   make certain, * see, make doubly sure

3. (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
4. (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...
   • 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