Word.ws English Dictionary

making a statement

making a statement is the present participle of make a statement.

Meaning of make a statement

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To implicitly communicate an idea, often through one's fashion choices.
    • As we sometimes also say about elements of fashion and etiquette, the way you use English "Makes a Statement" or "Sends a Message" — even though these Statements/Messages often have nothing to do with the actual information you're trying to transmit.2001 April, David Foster Wallace, “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage”, in Harper's Magazine
    Synonyms:
    send a message
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see make, a, statement.
    • His attorney is expected to make a statement tomorrow.

Questions about making a statement

What is making a statement the present participle of?
Making a statement is the present participle of make a statement.

Words near making a statement in the dictionary

  1. making a show of oneself
  2. making a silk purse of a sow's ear
  3. making a spectacle of oneself
  4. making a splash
  5. making a stand
  6. making a statement
  7. making a stick for one's own back
  8. making a time
  9. making a Virginia fence
  10. making a virtue of necessity
  11. making a wrong turn at Albuquerque

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: making a statement (page history and authors); make a statement (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: “making a statement.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/making_a_statement. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.