Phrasal Verbs 3 — out

The Particle “out”

Many phrasal verbs use out. The meaning of out changes depending on the verb it goes with. In this lesson you will see phrasal verbs where out can mean “stopping / finishing,” “physical exercise,” “developing,” “calculating,” and several other things.

Out = Not Burning, Not Shining

When a light, fire, or flame stops, we say it goes out. You can also make it stop yourself:

Verb	Meaning	Example
go out	stop burning or shining by itself	The power failed and all the screens in the office went out.
put out	stop a fire or cigarette	A small fire started in the break room, but someone put it out immediately.
turn out	switch off a light	Could you turn out the lights when you leave the meeting room?
blow out	extinguish by blowing	She blew out the candle on her retirement cake.

Work Out — Four Different Meanings

Work out is very flexible. It has at least four common uses:

1. Do Physical Exercise

Our company offers a gym membership, so I work out before work three mornings a week.

2. Develop or Progress

Use work out to talk about how a situation develops, especially whether it goes well or badly.

• She moved to the sales team last year, and it worked out really well for her.
• We tried sharing an office, but it didn’t work out.

3. Calculate a Number

When you need to find a total or split a bill, you can say it works out at a certain amount.

• The project budget is $24,000 for six months. That works out at $4,000 a month.

4. Understand or Find the Answer

Work out and figure out both mean to think about something and find the answer.

• I can’t work out why the server keeps crashing.
• Can you help me figure out how to use this new scheduling tool?

Other Important Verbs + Out

Carry out

Carry out means to do or complete something that was planned or ordered — an investigation, a plan, a survey, an experiment.

• The HR team carried out a staff satisfaction survey last month.
• Soldiers are expected to carry out orders without question.

Find out

Find out means to get information you did not have before. It is often followed by that, what, when, about, etc.

• I just found out that the deadline has been moved to Friday.
• How did you find out about the new policy? Did someone tell you?

Give out / Hand out

Give out or hand out means to distribute something to each person in a group.

• The trainer handed out worksheets at the start of the session.

Point out

Point out means to draw someone’s attention to something they may not have noticed.

• My manager pointed out a mistake in my report before I sent it to the client.
• I didn’t notice the typo until a colleague pointed it out to me.

Run out (of something)

Run out means to use all of something so that none is left.

• We ran out of printer paper right before the big presentation.
• Time is running out — we need to make a decision now.

Sort out

Sort out means to deal with a problem and find a solution, or to put things in order.

• There’s a billing issue with the supplier, but we’re sorting it out.
• I spent the whole afternoon sorting out my inbox.

Turn out

Turn out is used when something becomes clear in the end, often something surprising.

• The candidate looked inexperienced, but she turned out to be the best hire we ever made.
• It turned out that the delay was caused by a software bug, not a hardware fault.

Try out

Try out means to test something to see if it works well.

• We’re trying out a new project management tool this quarter.
• Before we roll it out to the whole team, let’s try it out in one department first.

Quick Self-Check