Rolls Off The Tongue, MAKE IT RAIN Origin: Late 20th, Early 21st ...

MAKE IT RAIN

Origin: Late 20th, Early 21st Century American English – The word “rain” itself very old, going back to Old English and Germanic languages. Its use in a figurative sense of something plentiful that falls, such as blessings, or tears, goes all the way back to the 12th century. This list probably included money. But the expression itself is very modern in the sense of creating wealth for someone or some organization. Someone who makes it rain in this sense can be called a “rainmaker.” However there is another idiomatic use which is throwing a lot of money at an exotic dancer. This use is even more recent.Usage: Informal spoken American English, often in a business or gambling context.

Idiomatic Meaning: Make a lot money for oneself or others; experience good fortune, typically through one’s proactive endeavors such as selling, inventing or other productive or successful activity.

Literal Meaning: Causing rain to fall from the sky, either physically, perhaps by seeding the clouds, or possibly spiritually by praying or even dancing for rain to fall.

Why is this funny? In the cartoon we see two guys in an airplane dumping money into the clouds. Their intent is to “make it rain”. Usually cloud seeding is done with “dry ice” (frozen carbon dioxide), or some other crystalline chemical. Bit in this case they are using dollar bills. This money will rain or fall from the sky along with the rain water, at least that’s what they are hoping will happen. They want to make it rain by “making it rain”.Sample sentence: When my start-up company was bought by Google I was able to “make it rain” for those employees who had company stock.

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