To cope or manage to do something without all the resources that one would ideally like to have. "Make do" is often followed by "with" or "without," depending on the context of the sentence. We don't have all the spices we need for this recipe, but since the weather is so bad, we're just going to have to make do with what we have. Since I forgot to pick up milk on the way home, I guess we're just going to have to make do without it. When I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of money, but we made do.