This phraseological phrase exists not only in Russian, but also in some other languages, for example, in German, French, Polish, English. What does it mean when a person is said to have to make ends meet? The interpretation of the idiom is the same for all peoples, although it has several meanings that are pretty close in meaning.
How should the phrase “make ends meet” be understood?
Often phraseology is used in cases where people are talking about who have difficulty in working, performing professional or everyday tasks, unsuccessfully trying to find the right solution. For example: “It was not an easy matter; it was not possible to make ends meet right away.”
Even more often, such a language wording can be heard in relation to a person who is limited in financial resources, who is forced to count every penny in order to meet the allocated budget. They say of him like this: "He earns so little that he barely makes ends meet." In this situation, the phrase “make ends meet” takes on almost literal meaning, according to the original meaning: “keep expenses on arrival”, that is, try to spend exactly as much as you get.
Etymology of Sustainable Expression
Presumably, this revolution came to the Russian language from French, where joindre les deux bouts means "connect the two ends." Linguists believe that the idiom was born in the accounting environment and was used in the meaning of "reduce debit with credit." Performing this action was not an easy task. Therefore, the phrase "make ends meet" began to sound in a figurative sense, when they talked about intricate circumstances, the way out of which required the application of mental or physical efforts.
Other versions of the origin of idioms
In literary sources, expression has been encountered for quite some time. For example, the English historian Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) describes the life of a certain gentleman in this way: “Worldly riches did not seduce him, he preferred to be content with little, just to make ends meet.”
Although a financial bias is clearly visible here, some linguists believe that expression could appear in a craft environment where it was necessary to combine separate parts into a single whole. The tailor needed to accurately calculate the amount of fabric for sewing clothes. And the person involved in the manufacture of baskets and other similar utensils, bring together the ends of the vine or birch bark. In the affirmative sound, this phraseological unit has a positive meaning. It means that a person managed to cope with difficult work, got out of a difficult financial or everyday situation.