How to Use make something of (oneself) in a Sentence

make something of (oneself)

idiom
  • At the start of his administration last year, there were strong signs that Biden would make something of a clean break from Trump’s past.
    Matt Ford, The New Republic, 18 Jan. 2022
  • Are we supposed to make something of Miranda needing a glass of wine at 11 a.m. before her first class and sneaking in a bottle for the recital?
    Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 9 Dec. 2021
  • Our father’s father’s father’s always told us: Go to school, get a job, make something of yourself.
    Corey S Powell, Discover Magazine, 17 Feb. 2017
  • No one believed more than Douglass in the agency of free men and women, black and white, to make something of themselves in a free political order.
    Daniel J. Mahoney, National Review, 17 Oct. 2020
  • There's only one way to make something of yourself, and that's to go to school, get a degree, and become something traditional like a doctor or a lawyer.
    Thatiana Diaz, refinery29.com, 15 Sep. 2020
  • Spielberg, who is seventy-five, seems to have carried these around with him throughout his life and career, like a hoard of treasures in the raw, waiting for the moment to make something of them.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 15 Nov. 2022
  • What Butler’s heroines have in common is the resourcefulness and grit to make something of nothing — the ability to problem-solve, time and time again.
    Lynell George, New York Times, 17 Nov. 2022
  • John Goodspeed, a friend and former Express-News colleague, said that Strait had a special ability to make something of very little.
    John MacCormack, ExpressNews.com, 16 Nov. 2020
  • May initially thought that salvaging the recording wouldn’t be possible, but the band’s engineering team was able to make something of the archival audio.
    Jacquelyne Germain, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Oct. 2022
  • Five weeks and Pac-12 tournament remain for Oregon State to make something of this men’s basketball season.
    oregonlive, 29 Jan. 2022
  • But then America, like Premier League success, is more an ideal than an actual thing, something aspirational that belongs less to the person or club on top than to those striving to make something of themselves.
    Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times, 29 June 2021
  • America was settled by generations of immigrants who came here with a burning ambition to make something of themselves and their families.
    Harvey MacKay, Star Tribune, 26 Sep. 2020
  • The cinematographer Ari Wegner’s camera will occasionally zoom out for massive aerial shots that underline the insignificance of the people milling among the mountains, trying to make something of themselves.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 3 Dec. 2021
  • Ultimately, family matters; ancestry matters; young people are expected to make something of themselves.
    K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 3 Sep. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'make something of (oneself).' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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