pan out

verb

1. informal,  (intr, adverb) to work out; turn out; result

Idioms and Phrases

Turn out well, succeed, as in If I don't pan out as a musician, I can always go back to school. This expression alludes to washing gold from gravel in a pan. [Mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

Especially compelling are his accounts of projects that didn’t pan out, such as “Sick in the Head,” the only sitcom Mr. Apatow ever made before a live audience.

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So you could create your own imagination of how it was gonna pan out.”

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If that pans out, the companies will have spent $1 trillion in four years, largely on AI.

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In the millions of words said and written in the preamble to this game, in all the different scenarios presented about how it might all pan out, nobody came up with this.

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Some board members had questioned Vestberg’s leadership over the prior two years, though other candidates the company considered elevating hadn’t panned out.

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Related Words

• turn out