To manage, to contrive.
1609. I could not but make out to tell you so.—Ben Jonson, ‘The Silent Woman,’ v. 1.
1776. I am seated in a large library room with eight gentlemen round about me, all engaged in conversation. Amidst these interruptions, how shall I make it out to write a letter?—J. Adams, ‘Familiar Letters’ (1876), p. 231. (N.E.D.)
1807. We went thirteen miles and encamped in a bottom, just large enough for the purpose, and made out to get enough of drift wood to cook with.—Patrick Gass, ‘Journal,’ p. 131–2. (N.E.D.)
1834. One of his horses had indeed struck lame, but he had made out to bring him to the village with all his wares.—W. G. Simms, ‘Guy Rivers,’ i. 73 (N.Y., 1837).
1845. I made out to skin and to cut up the b’ar, and a noble mountain of fat she made.—Id., ‘The Wigwam and the Cabin,’ p. 58 (Lond.).
1853. He did make out to give us some breakfast in the morning.—Brigham Young, June 5: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 256.
1857. She [the cow] eat until she nearly killed herself, and we have just made out to save her.—The same, April 6: id., iv. 317.
1857. He [the old man] made out to continue his duties through the session.—Geo. A. Smith, Bowery, July 26: id., v. 61.
1859. What with foreboding looks and dreary death-bed stories, it was a wonder the child made out to live through it.—Holmes, ‘The Professor at the Breakfast-Table,’ chap. iii.
1866. The horse and rider were carried down stream with fearful speed for about a dozen rods, when they made out to land again on the same side from which they started.—Seba Smith, ‘’Way Down East,’ p. 277.
