to balance out
- phrasal verb
- Helping to balance out perceived challenges were personal benefits generated by the SB experience.
But how does that balance out if we auction it off for charity?
- But how does that balance out if we auction it off for charity?
- So always thinking, you know, like balance out creative versus control.
- Second thing, you can always choose to either balance out your features or accentuate them.
- So they describe the use of MDMA to kind of balance out the kind of affect component of it.
- We added in this case, apple cider vinegar to balance this out.
- Like literally so sour, but with the Sandia it like balances itself out.
- We have evolved to have those kinds of substances that we can take to help balance out chemistries.
- It's two people being able to balance each other out and that balance bring forth harmony.
- And it has to do with two main things that have to be balanced out.
- It's just this simple understanding in the beginning to balance things out.
Examples
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It'll balance out your emotions.
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We need to balance out the plane or it's gonna fall.
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In the end, the books have to balance out.
Academic text (2011) -
Not to mention that there are a lot of factors to balance out when buying these things.
Blog text (4) -
Now I'll have good memories to balance out the bad.
Fiction book (1991) -
It's only a matter of time before everything balances itself out.
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For most of human history, high birthrates and high mortality rates tended to balance each other out.
Academic text (2012) -
Make sure to top off the look with heels to balance out the casualness of the sweater.
Blog text (17) -
That way it helps balance out the falsies with my bottom lashes.
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To improve your health, you should balance out junk food with healthier choices.
Synonyms
To reduce a bad effect by providing something that balances it
To change something to reduce a problem caused by something else
To make a surface, amount, or relationship level by removing differences
Make one thing stop the effect of another so nothing happens
To make things the same in amount, status or value
To balance the effect of something by adding an opposite force
To make two things equal or fair by adjusting what is different
To balance something by adding weight or cancelling its effect
To become or make something balanced
To balance something by acting against it
To make up for a problem by adding something good
To act as a balance against a strong opposite force
To make something balanced, for example temperature or teams
Antonyms
How Balanced
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to make equal or compensate' follows directly from 'balance' (to equalize) combined with the particle 'out', which here conveys completion or evening-out; together they form the predictable phrasal verb meaning 'even out/compensate'. This compositional pattern is common in English and mirrors equivalents in many languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would very likely infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The phrasal verb balance out comes from the image of a two-sided scale: you put weight on one side until the two sides are even. So to balance something out today means 'to make equal' or 'to make up for' by adding or changing things so there is no overall too much or too little.