Word.ws English Dictionary

making oneself scarce

making oneself scarce is the present participle and gerund of make oneself scarce.

Meaning of make oneself scarce

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To leave or stay away from a place, especially in order to avoid an encounter.
    • Perhaps I should make myself scarce before he finds any more chores to assign me.

Questions about making oneself scarce

What is making oneself scarce the present participle and gerund of?
Making oneself scarce is the present participle and gerund of make oneself scarce.

Words near making oneself scarce in the dictionary

  1. making one's own luck
  2. making one's toilet
  3. making one's way
  4. making oneself at home
  5. making oneself clear
  6. making oneself scarce
  7. making out
  8. making out like a bandit
  9. making out of
  10. making out with
  11. making over

Source and license

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