make (one's) day

To cause one to feel very happy; to be a very positive highlight of one's day. When my neighbors surprised me with homemade chocolate chip cookies, it really made my day. Getting compliments at work always makes my day!

Inf. Go ahead, do what you are going to do, and I will be very happy to do what I have to do! (A catchphrase from a movie scene of a police officer who has a gun pointed at a criminal. The police officer wants the criminal to do something that will justify pulling the trigger, which the police officer will do with pleasure. Used in real life in any context, and especially in sarcasm.) Move a muscle! Go for your gun! Go ahead, make my day! Make my day. Just try it.

Give one great pleasure, as in Hearing you won first prize just made my day. This phrase, which uses make in the sense of "secure success in," was first recorded in 1909.

People sometimes say make my day when they want to challenge another person to compete, argue or fight with them. They threaten dire punishments to any journalist who dares to write `propaganda' for the fur trade. All I can say is, go ahead boys, make my day. Note: In the film `Sudden Impact' (1983), Clint Eastwood, playing a detective called Harry, uses this expression to challenge a criminal who is threatening to shoot him.

COMMON If someone or something makes your day, they make you feel very happy. There was such a sincere expression of friendliness on both their faces that it was a joy to see. It really made my day. When you have a customer who turns round and thanks you, it makes your day.

To give one great pleasure.

That has made me very happy, restored my confidence, and otherwise gratified me. This twentieth-century expression relies on the meaning of make as “succeed.” However, in the mouth of a tough police detective named Dirty Harry, a film role played by Clint Eastwood, the phrase was turned into “Go ahead—make my day,” meaning “Give me a chance to get back at you.” In the presidential campaign of 1988 George H. W. Bush used the phrase quite frequently, as President Ronald Reagan had before him, and it was not always clear which meaning was intended. However, the more common usage was that employed by P. G. Wodehouse in his novel, The Luck of Bodkins (1935), “That will be great. That will just make my day.”