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🔎 To happen 👥 To gather 💡 To switch off 🏭 To produce 🚪 To expel ⏰ To get up 🩰 To rotate outward 👗 To dress up
to turn out

to turn out

∞ 3.4
To be discovered or to happen in a way you do not expect
  • phrasal verb
  • /tɜrn aʊt/
translation icon : resultar
  • She was nervous about the performance, but it turned out to be a great success.
  • turn out well
  • turn out to be wrong
  • things turned out

Trump's Russia hoax turns out to be real.

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Examples

  • And making those two things consistent turned out to be very hard.

  • The region's universities, meanwhile, are not turning out the kinds of professionals that development demands.

    Academic text (2011)

  • Now, things could have turned out much worse than they did.

  • First mistake turned out to be his last.

  • The best care often turns out to be the least expensive.

  • I think he has turned out to be a great young man.

  • We reach a lower cave, which turns out to be only a few feet high.

    Academic text (2008)

  • But the great legacy of the case may turn out to be Life After Innocence.

    Academic text (2011)

  • After all of that work, the order turned out to be somewhat underwhelming.

    Academic text (2011)

  • But reports of the death of conflict in the region turned out to have been greatly exaggerated.

    Academic text (2015)

Synonyms

to prove
vsto turn out
∞ 3.1

To show that something is true by giving facts or reasons

is about being discovered or shown to be so often by chance
to come out
vsto turn out
106 2.4

To finish in a particular way in a competition or event

is used for general discovery or happening often unexpectedly rather than contest results
to pan out
vsto turn out
  • Informal
48 5.3

To end up in a good or successful way

is about how something happens possibly unexpectedly not only successful outcomes

How Certain

to prove
∞ 3.1
to confirm
∞ 1.8
to turn out
∞ 3.4
to suspect
925 3.6
to appear
∞ 2.0
to speculate
254 4.8

Surface Forms

turn out infinitive
turned out past
turned out past participle
turning out present participle
turns out third person singular

Morphology

turn + out

The dressing sense is only partially derivable from the constituents: 'turn' (change) + 'out' (outward) can be linked to altering outward appearance, but the specific meaning 'dress/equip someone' depends on knowing the phrasal-verb usage rather than pure composition. Because 'turn out' has several unrelated senses and the connection to clothing is metaphorical and not fully predictable, a B1 learner who only knows the words may not reliably infer this meaning.

Etymology

Turn out can be seen like turning a box or bag out to see what is inside, so the true result is shown. That's why it now means 'to be discovered' or 'to prove' in a certain way.