makings
- 1The ingredients or qualities needed for something to be made or to develop.
Like raw ingredients on the counter, ready to be turned into a finished dish.
The young athlete clearly had the makings of a champion.
The pantry held the makings of an excellent dinner.
Similaringredients, qualities, essentials, requisites
Note
It nearly always comes in the frame the makings of, and it stretches from literal to figurative. The makings of a sandwich are bread and turkey on the counter. The makings of a fine leader are qualities still unproven. The word takes plural agreement, as Curtis Mayfield's 1970 song shows when it pairs the makings with a plural verb, and it has no singular in this sense.
- 2Plural of making. Chiefly in "the makings of": the qualities, materials or ingredients needed to make or become something.
The young team has the makings of a championship contender.
The story had all the makings of a Hollywood thriller.
Note
A plural that exists only because making can be counted. The noun names an act of constructing or a process of growth, and only its countable uses take an -s. The verb form making, the present participle of make, never pluralizes. The same spelling also belongs to the "necessary ingredients" noun, which has no singular at all.
makings is a form of making
making, noun: The act of forming, causing, or producing something; the workmanship or manner in which something is constructed. Full entry
- Forms
- makingmakings plural
- Spelling
- making → makings: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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