Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

cannot make it en · VERB

Meanings

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cannot, make it.
  2. (Singapore, colloquial, idiomatic, stative) Cannot reach satisfactory or expected standards or do something competently; describes someone in a hopeless situation.
    • A noble effort but somehow the only words that came to mind were “cannot make it, lah”. 2006 July 20, Zul Othman, Today, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English, Singapore: Mediacorp Press, page 37:
    • […] “it never ended preliminarily at ‘he cannot make it’, […] it was always ‘let's do this or that to help him’.” 2023, Dan Goodley, Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Meng Ee Wong, Not Without Us: Perspectives on Disability and Inclusion in Singapore, →ISBN:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
CMI alternative lexicographic