Manage

Pronunciation

• GenAm IPA: /ˈmænÉ™dÊ’/, /ˈmænɪdÊ’/
• Hyphenation: man + age
• Rhymes: -ænÉ™dÊ’

Origin

From Early Modern English manage, menage, from Middle English *manage, *menage, from Old French manege ("the handling or training of a horse, horsemanship, riding, maneuvers, proceedings"), probably from Old Italian maneggiare ("to handle, manage, touch, treat"), from mano, from Latin manus ("the hand"); see manual.

Full definition of manage

Verb

1. (transitive) To direct or be in charge of.
2. (transitive) To handle or control (a situation, job).
3. (transitive) To handle with skill, wield (a tool, weapon etc.).
• Joseph Addison (1672-1719)It was so much his interest to manage his Protestant subjects.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ii:The most vnruly, and the boldest boy,
  That euer warlike weapons menaged ....
4. (intransitive) To succeed at an attempt
   He managed to climb the tower.
• 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, Mr. Pratt's Patients Chapter 7, Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.
• 2013-11-30, Paul Davis, Letters: Say it as simply as possible, Congratulations on managing to use the phrase “preponderant criterion” in a chart (“On your marks”, November 9th). Was this the work of a kakorrhaphiophobic journalist set a challenge by his colleagues, or simply an example of glossolalia?
5. (intransitive) To achieve without fuss, or without outside help.
• 2013-07-20, Welcome to the plastisphere, Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.
6. To train (a horse) in the manege; to exercise in graceful or artful action.
7. (obsolete) To treat with care; to husband.
8. (obsolete) To bring about; to contrive.

Synonyms

• bewield

Derived terms

Related terms

Noun

1. (now rare) The act of managing or controlling something.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.xii:the winged God himselfe
  Came riding on a Lion rauenous,
  Taught to obay the menage of that Elfe ....
• Francis BaconYoung men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold.
• Shakespearethe unlucky manage of this fatal brawl
2. (horseriding) Manège.

Anagrams

• Meagan