work out

phrasal verb

14 meanings of work out

1
exercise (gym)phrasal verbintransitive
To take physical exercise, especially by lifting weights.
He works out before every shift, mostly with free weights.
Many athletes work out twice a day during the off-season.
Similarexercise, train
Note
Asked as Do you work out?, it is a familiar compliment on someone's build, and the simple present points to a regular habit rather than one session. Add a body part as the object and it becomes the "strengthen" sense.
2
go wellphrasal verbintransitive
To turn out well or succeed, resulting in a satisfactory situation.
Their plan to open a second café worked out better than anyone expected.
If the timing works out, we'll stop in Denver on the way.
Similarsucceed
Oppositefail
Note
In the negative it reports an ending without assigning blame: Are you still seeing John? No, it didn't work out. Relationships, plans and timing are its usual subjects, and pan out is the nearest synonym. In a railway planner's Utopia, every roster would work out daily according to plan.
3
phrasal verbtransitive
To make sense of something, coming to understand what it means or how it works.
It took her a week to work out the old map's strange symbols.
Detectives are still trying to work out the motive behind the break-in.
Similarunderstand, decipher, fathom, determine
Note
Like most phrasal verbs with an object, it splits around a pronoun: work it out, never work out it. A noun can go on either side, work out the instructions or work these instructions out, though a long object usually comes last: work out what the old map's symbols mean. Figure out is the close synonym.
4
calculatephrasal verbtransitive
To find a figure, total, or answer by calculation.
The accountant worked out the tax due on each property.
Use the formula to work out the area of the triangle.
Similarcalculate, compute, figure, determine
Note
Sums are only the start: it also takes whole questions and conclusions as its object, as in work out how to get to the university, or you don't have to be Einstein to work out that a subsidy is unsustainable. Calculate is narrower, kept for figures; work out covers any reasoning that ends in an answer.
5
solve problemphrasal verbtransitive
To resolve something, such as a problem or dispute, by finding a solution to it.
Negotiators worked out the remaining disputes over fishing rights late Sunday night.
We need to work out the scheduling conflict before the conference opens.
Similarresolve, settle, solve
Note
The object is a problem rather than a result: you work out differences or a dispute, where the "bring about" meaning produces the compromise itself. The passive suits reassurance, as when Donald Trump said of possible tariffs on Britain, "I think that one can be worked out", promising a fix without saying who would make it.
6
decidephrasal verbtransitive
To come to a decision about something.
She's trying to work out whether to accept the offer or wait for a better one.
The couple worked out who would keep the dog before they moved.
Similardecide, determine
7
plan in detailphrasal verbtransitive
To develop or devise something in detail, such as a plan, a scheme, or an argument.
The committee spent months working out the new budget, line by line.
Before writing a word, the novelist works out every twist of the plot.
Similardevise, develop, plan, formulate
8
phrasal verbtransitive
To bring something about or make it happen through work or effort.
The preacher told the congregation that each of them must work out their own salvation.
Through decades of patient struggle, the small nation finally worked out its own independence.
Similarnegotiate, arrange, broker
Note
Agreements are the typical object: a compromise, a ceasefire, a deal. Hammer out and hash out are near neighbors that stress hard bargaining, while work out says only that effort produced the result. In H. Rider Haggard's She, a man must work out his own salvation, achieving it from within rather than receiving it.
9
add upphrasal verbintransitive
Of a calculation or set of figures, to come out with the correct result.
The auditor flagged the report because the totals didn't work out.
Check each column; if the figures work out, the books are balanced.
Similartally, balance
Note
The figures themselves are the subject here: you work out a sum, and then the sum works out, or, as often, it doesn't: these figures just don't work out. Add up is the close equivalent, and both are said of totals that should balance.
10
strengthen (body part)phrasal verbtransitive
To strengthen a particular part of one's body through exercise.
Pilates classes work out the core muscles that support the spine.
She's been working out her back and shoulders to help her posture.
Similarexercise, strengthen, train
Note
The object is a body part or muscle group, such as the core, the back or the shoulders. The past participle doubles as an adjective, hyphenated before a noun: a hot, worked-out body. The same spelling describes an exhausted quarry in the mining sense, so a worked-out body and a worked-out pit point in opposite directions.

11
remove flawsphrasal verbtransitive
To smooth something out or bring it to perfection, removing its remaining flaws.
The bakery spent a month working out the kinks in its new sourdough recipe.
Test pilots flew the prototype for months to work out the remaining flaws in its handling.
Note
Kinks are the classic thing to work out: a beta version is still working out the kinks, meaning the small faults that show up in use. Iron out and smooth out are its near-synonyms, and the same image of smoothing lets a massage therapist work out the knots in a shoulder.
12
literal sensephrasal verbtransitive or intransitive
The literal pairing of work and out, each in its ordinary sense, rather than any idiomatic meaning.
The mechanic worked out the rusted bolt with a wrench and plenty of oil.
Several reporters work out of the paper's bureau in the state capital.
Note
Two literal patterns hide in the pairing. With an object, out marks removal: he worked the bee sting out of his hand. With out of and a place, it means to be based there: he works out of a small office shared with three others. Neither has anything to do with exercise or arithmetic.
13
farmer's extra jobphrasal verbUSintransitive
To earn wages by working away from one's own farm.
To pay off the mortgage, she kept the farm going and worked out as a schoolteacher in the next county.
Young men from the homesteads would work out on the railroad crews each summer.
Note
Rural America used it for hiring on elsewhere for wages: in Willa Cather's My Ántonia (1918) two Russian farmhands work out together in summer, and in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) a man hopes to work out for extra cash. Today it is easily heard as the gym meaning, so took outside work is clearer.
14
exhaust (mine)phrasal verbtransitive
In mining, to extract all the mineral from a deposit that can be profitably removed.
Once the seam was worked out, the mine closed and the town slowly emptied.
Developers turned the worked-out clay pit into a nature reserve.
Similarexhaust, deplete
Note
Mining measures exhaustion in money, not in rock: a worked-out seam may still hold mineral, just none worth the cost of taking. The phrase mostly appears in the passive (the gravel pit had been worked out) or as an adjective, hyphenated before a noun, as in a worked-out chalk pit, and written open after a verb: the quarry is worked out.

Practice

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