Word.ws English Dictionary

make the grade

make the grade verb: to prove satisfactory; to be successful or worthy of merit.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To prove satisfactory; to be successful or worthy of merit.
    • Near-synonym: fit the bill
    • In 1916 the famed Van Sweringen brothers bought their first railroad—the Nickel Plate. . . . This year, as usual, the tarnished Nickel Plate cannot make the grade. In first seven months it lost $2,003,779.1938 October 17, “Tarnished Plate”, in TIME, archived from the original on 26 Aug 2010

make the grade meaning in Malayalam

make the grade in Malayalam

qualify, come up to standard, come up to scratch
വിജയിക്കുക, ഭംഗിയായി ചെയ്യുക, ജയം സിദ്ധിക്കുക, നിലവാരത്തിനൊത്തുയരുക, വേണ്ടനിലവാരത്തിലെത്തുക, അവശ്യം വേണ്ട ഗുണമേന്മയുണ്ടായിരിക്കുക

Synonyms of make the grade

All synonyms of make the grade

Forms of make the grade

third-person singular presentmakes the grade
present participlemaking the grade
past participlemade the grade
pastmade the grade

Origin of make the grade

Probably from a railway train climbing a length of track sloping uphill (a grade).

Questions about make the grade

What does make the grade mean?
Make the grade means to prove satisfactory; to be successful or worthy of merit.
What is make the grade in Malayalam?
Make the grade in Malayalam is വിജയിക്കുക, ഭംഗിയായി ചെയ്യുക, ജയം സിദ്ധിക്കുക. See Make the grade meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is make the grade?
Make the grade is a verb.
What is the past tense of make the grade?
The past tense of make the grade is made the grade.

Words near make the grade in the dictionary

  1. make the difference
  2. make the dust fly
  3. make the feathers fly
  4. make the first move
  5. make the fur fly
  6. make the grade
  7. make the headlines
  8. make the most of
  9. make the news
  10. make the passes
  11. make the perfect the enemy of the good

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make the grade (page history and authors); make the grade (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 the grade.ogg.

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