Definition of "come out"

come out

/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/

verb
third-person singular simple present comes out, present participle coming out, simple past came out, past participle come out
1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see come,‎ out.
2. To be discovered, be revealed.
3. To be published, be issued.
4. (old-fashioned or historical) (as a debutante) To make a formal debut in society.
  Quotations
  "You would not trouble it much, child," returned Lady Anne, pettishly; "you know you are the plain one of the family. I do not know what I shall do with you when you come out; you will have no beauty but that of youth."
  1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, page 63
5. (copulative) To end up or result.
6. (cricket, of a batsman) To walk onto the field at the beginning of an innings.
7. (idiomatic, informal) To come out of the closet.
  Quotations
  I had not come out yet and he was out but wasn't; quite ungay, I would say, and yet gay.
  2011, Allan Bérubé, My Desire for History: Essays in Gay, Community, and Labor History
  Like many gay Chinese growing up at the turn of the millennium, Duan Shuai began his long, deliberate process of coming out online. After school, he would visit the newly opened internet cafe in his hometown, Xinzhou, a small city in Shanxi Province bounded by a veil of mountains. He would pick a desktop facing away from the wall so that nobody could look over his shoulder. Then he’d go to QQ, the new instant-messaging service and online forum, and type in the Chinese word for “homosexual” — tongzhi, or comrade.
  2020 March 5, Yi-Ling Liu, “How a Dating App Helped a Generation of Chinese Come Out of the Closet”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 2020-03-06, Feature‎
  In March 2017, a 90-year-old second world war veteran called Patricia Davies came out as a transgender woman and began taking hormones, shortly after discussing her lifelong gender dysphoria with her doctor.
  August 24 2021, Shon Faye, “‘I feel like it’s quite shaky acceptance’: trans kids and the fight for inclusion”, in The Guardian
8. To be deducted from.
9. To express one's opinion openly.
10. (of the sun, moon or stars) To become visible in the sky as a result of clouds clearing away.
11. To protest or go on strike, especially out of solidarity with other workers.
12. To make a debut in a new field.
  Quotations
  By the year 2000, Shanghai is scheduled to become an international center of commerce and finance; economic strategists predict that by 2010 the city will have become the world's largest trading center. This "secret capital" of China has set some ambitious goals for itself. The population is proudly celebrating their collective "coming out," and business is booming.
  1999, “Shanghai”, in The Book of the World, 2nd United States edition (Atlas), Macmillan, page 411, column 1

Definition of "come out"

come out

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations