make hay

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make hay (third-person singular simple present makes hay, present participle making hay, simple past and past participle made hay)

1. (literally) To cut grass to turn into hay for animal feed.
2. (idiomatic) To take advantage of an opportunity.
   • 2021 January 27, Christian Wolmar, “Little-used stations”, in RAIL, issue 923, page 46:

     I suggested that this was a mistake, particularly at a time of national crisis on the railways, because it opened the way for critics of the railway to make hay - which Institute of Economic Affairs Director Richard Wellings duly did in an anti-rail article in the Daily Telegraph.

• make hay while the sun shines