manage

English

Etymology

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”), ultimately from Latin manus (“the hand”); see manual.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmænɪdʒ/
• (US)
  • (General American, weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈmænədʒ/ ^help
  • (no weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈmænɪdʒ/
• Hyphenation: man‧age
• Rhymes: -ænɪdʒ

Verb

manage (third-person singular simple present manages, present participle managing, simple past and past participle managed)

1. (transitive) To direct or be in charge of.

   Even though Jack is a novice, he manages his team with great success.

   • 1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 750:

     Interlaken East station is jointly owned with the standard gauge Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon Railway from Bern and Thun and the Swiss Federal Railways metre-gauge Brünig line from Lucerne, but is managed and staffed by the Bernese Oberland group.

2. (transitive) To handle or control (a situation, job).

   The government managed the inflation very poorly.

3. (transitive) To handle with skill, wield (a tool, weapon etc.).
   • 1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     It was so much his interest to manage his Protestant subjects.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     The moſt vnruly, and the boldeſt boy,
     That euer warlike weapons menaged […] .

4. (intransitive) To succeed at an attempt in spite of difficulty.

   He managed to climb the tower.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     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 November 30, Paul Davis, “Letters: Say it as simply as possible”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8864:

     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. (transitive, intransitive) To achieve (something) without fuss, or without outside help.

   It's a tough job, but I'll manage.

   • 2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     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. (transitive) To manage to say; to say while fighting back embarrassment, laughter, etc.

   "That's nice, dear!", she managed.

7. (transitive) To train (a horse) in the manège; to exercise in graceful or artful action.
8. (obsolete, transitive) To treat with care; to husband.
   • 1673, John Dryden, “Prologue”, in Marriage à la Mode:

     [She] […] manages her last half-crown with care,
     And trudges to the Mall, on foot

9. (obsolete, transitive) To bring about; to contrive.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     in a town of war,
     Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,
     To manage private and domestic quarrel,
     In night, and on the court and guard of safety!

Synonyms

• (To handle with skill, wield): bewield

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

manage (uncountable)

1. (now rare) The act of managing or controlling something.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     the winged God himſelfe
     Came riding on a Lion rauenous,
     Taught to obay the menage of that Elfe […] .

   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Youth and Age”, in The Essayes , 3rd edition, London: Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

     Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold.

   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     the unlucky manage of this fatal brawl

2. (horseriding) Manège.
   • 1622, Henry Peacham (Jr.), The Compleat Gentleman:

     You must draw [the horse] in his career with his manage, and turn, doing the corvetto, leaping &c..

See also

• man
• Management on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

• “manage”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “manage”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Meagan, agname

Middle English

Noun

manage

1. Alternative form of menage