churn out

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churn out (third-person singular simple present churns out, present participle churning out, simple past and past participle churned out)

1. (transitive, informal) To produce a large quantity of (something) rapidly and easily.

   Barbara Cartland was renowned for her ability to churn out romantic novels.

   • 1972 May, B. J. Mason, “Black Cinema Expo ’72”, in Ebony, volume 27, number 7, page 160:

     Stan Myles adds that the Griffiths are still among us, too—still grinding out their fears and fantasies in the guise of “relevant” flicks, most of which turn out to be variations on the same old theme […] writers still churn out quick-buck distortions of the truth; but issues are avoided like the plague; white filmsters—in a frenzy of self-abasement, perhaps—have succeeded only in being more subtle instead of less racist; and even some black filmsters—in a rush for questionable glory—have created one-dimensional portraits of their people.

   • 2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1-0 Bolton”, in BBC:

     Yet another seriously under-par performance is unlikely to provide any real answers to their remarkable plummet in form - but it proves they can at least churn out a much-needed result.

   • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

     As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.

• This term can imply an emphasis of quantity over quality, and as such can be disparaging.