pan out

pan out (third-person singular simple present pans out, present participle panning out, simple past and past participle panned out)

1. (transitive) To separate and recover (valuable minerals) by swirling dirt or crushed rock in a pan of water, in the manner of a traditional prospector seeking gold.
   • 1907, Mark Twain, chapter 26, in Chapters from My Autobiography:

     On the Saturday holidays in summer-time we used to borrow skiffs whose owners were not present and go down the river three miles to the cave hollow (Missourian for "valley"), and there we staked out claims and pretended to dig gold, panning out half a dollar a day at first.

   • 1919, Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, chapter 11, in The Avalanche:

     His father came out in '49 with the gold rush crowd, panned out a good pile, and then, liking the life—San Francisco was a gay little burg those days—opened one of the crack gambling houses down on the Old Plaza.

2. (intransitive, figurative) To proceed according to plan; to result or end up.

   Synonyms: shape up, work out

   • 1917, Mary Roberts Rinehart, chapter 3, in Bab: A Sub-Deb:

     Many a pretty girl I have seen in my time, who didn't pan out according to specifications when I finally met her.

   • 1998, “The One With Rachel's Crush”, in Friends, spoken by Joey Tribbiani:

     That was just a theory! There's a lot of theories that didn't pan out: lone gunman, communism, geometry…

   • 2004 October 17, Matthew Forney, “Who's Getting It Right?”, in Time:

     The China market is finally panning out, thanks to the voracious consumerism of the middle class.

   • 2020 July 29, “Carne: "Treasury has its hands on the railway joystick already"”, in Rail, page 9:

     "It is anybody's guess how this is going to pan out. The Government will have even more control of the railway than before, with no incentive to innovate. [...]"

   • 2023 August 12, “Harry Kane joins Bayern Munich and leaves door open for Spurs return”, in The Guardian‎:

     “It’s not a goodbye because you never know how things pan out in the future, but it’s a thank you and I’ll see you soon,” Kane posted on his social media accounts.

• “pan out”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.