What does “het uitmaken” mean in Dutch?

Het uitmaken means to end a romantic relationship — to break up. The literal pieces are uit (out) + maken (make), which gives English speakers pause because “make out” means something very different in English. In Dutch, the construction works the other way: one person “makes it out” of the relationship. The standard form is het uitmaken met iemand — “to break up with someone.”

In the clip, one partner snaps: “Ik wil het uitmaken” — “I want to break up” — right in the middle of a blazing argument, which shows the verb in exactly the register where you need it most. Note that uitmaken is a separable verb: in the present tense it splits — Ik maak het uit — while the infinitive stays joined. The same root appears in the very common het maakt niet uit (“it doesn’t matter”), so learners who already know that phrase will immediately recognise the building blocks here.