cannot make it

English

Alternative forms

• CMI (Singapore, initialism)

Verb

cannot make it

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cannot,‎ make it.
2. (Singapore, colloquial, stative, idiomatic) Cannot reach satisfactory or expected standards or do something competently; describes someone in a hopeless situation.
   • 2006 July 20, Zul Othman, Today, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English, Singapore: Mediacorp Press, page 37:

     A noble effort but somehow the only words that came to mind were “cannot make it, lah”.

   • 2023, Dan Goodley, Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Meng Ee Wong, Not Without Us: Perspectives on Disability and Inclusion in Singapore, →ISBN:

     […] “it never ended preliminarily at ‘he cannot make it’, […] it was always ‘let's do this or that to help him’.”