to round out
- phrasal verb
- /raʊnd aʊt/
- Doing the math, that means each manicure rounds out to only $7.
Examples
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What's your favorite food to round out your weekly menu?
Blog text (15) -
Belarus rounds out the list.
Blog text (31) -
If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn't feel an obligation to round out the number.
Blog text (19) -
This company has nearly 600 units in service in U.S. municipal wastewater plants. Eimco (including the former Bird and KHD) and GEA (Westfalia, Centrico) round out the top three suppliers in the U.S.
Academic text (2001) -
The baker decided to round out the dozen by adding one more cupcake.
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To round out their financial report, they included the last quarter's figures.
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At the meeting, the manager suggested they round out the group to a full ten members.
Synonyms
Adjust a number to the nearest whole number for simplicity
To change a number to the nearest whole number to make it simpler
How Precise
Surface Forms
Morphology
round + out
The meaning 'to make something more rounded' is directly compositional from 'round' (to make or be circular/rounded) plus the particle 'out' (often meaning to make something complete or fully so). Even if one sense of 'round' is numeric, the shape-related sense is common at B1 and the verb+out pattern is a regular, cross-linguistically familiar composition, so learners who know the constituents can infer the meaning.
Etymology
The phrasal verb round out comes from the idea of turning a messy number into a smooth, 'round' one by moving it up or down to the nearest ten or hundred, like changing $97.74 to $100. So it means 'to express a number as a whole or simple value'.