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Examples

  • But there were deficiencies and there were make-shifts, very well known to herself and well understood by her maid.

    The American Senator 2004

  • Thus, by divers little make-shifts in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated “by hook and by crook,” the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.

    The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon 2002

  • It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may not have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to which I am a little given, were I to mention the other make-shifts of this worthy old humorist, by which he was endeavoring to follow up, though at humble distance, the quaint customs of antiquity.

    The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon 2002

  • The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life, -- chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 72, October, 1863 Various

  • Foreseeing, yet deprecating, the coming time of trouble, we still hoped, that, with some repairs and make-shifts, the old views might last out our days.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 33, July, 1860 Various

  • On such occasions, we are forced to adapt our wants to our means; and the make-shifts to which we are obliged to resort, if they are sometimes inconvenient, are often very amusing.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 Various

  • It becomes necessary, in the next place, to see that suitable ladders and stages are provided, and that there be a sufficient quantity of tobacco sticks, such as have been described to answer the full demand of the tobacco house, whatsoever may be its size; time will be otherwise lost in make-shifts, or sending for a second supply.

    Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce E. R. Billings

  • All of these are make-shifts for the purpose of avoiding the expense of a good outlet.

    Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside Various

  • All equivocations and dissimulations, all literal truths that are really deceptions, all attempts to salve one's own conscience by making one's statements true "in a sense," and yet gain the advantage of an out-and - out lie, are miserable make-shifts and utterly demoralizing.

    Problems of Conduct Durant Drake

  • I hate examples because they are either make-shifts or will-o'-the-wisps, but here I must add that in Uhland's song, "A short while hence I dreamed," I find such a feeling expressed.

    The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 09 Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig Various

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