work out

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌwəːk ˈaʊt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌwɚk ˈaʊt/

work out (third-person singular simple present works out, present participle working out, simple past and past participle worked out)

1. (transitive, with object after out) To calculate.

   Can you work out 250 × 12 in your head for me?

   Can you work out how to get to the university by car?

2. (transitive) To make sense of.

   Synonym: figure out

   I can't work these instructions out.

3. (transitive) To smooth or perfect.

   This is a beta version; we're still working out the kinks.

4. (intransitive) To conclude with the correct solution.

   These figures just don't work out.

5. (intransitive) To succeed; to result in a satisfactory situation.

   Are you still seeing John? – No, it didn't work out.

6. (intransitive) To exercise.

   John won't be here for a while because he is working out.

7. (intransitive) To habitually exercise rigorously, especially by lifting weights, in order to increase strength or muscle mass or maintain fitness.

   Synonym: train

   Wow, you're looking good! Do you work out?

8. (intransitive, US) To earn a wage working away from one's farm.
   • 1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 5, p. 38,

     The two Russians made good farmhands, and in summer they worked out together.

   • 1939, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, New York: Viking, 1958, Chapter 13, p. 201,

     […] with them good wages, maybe a fella can get hisself a little piece a land an’ work out for extra cash.

9. (transitive, intransitive) Used other than with a figurative or idiomatic meaning: see work,‎ out.

   Using some tweezers, he worked the bee sting out of his hand.

   He works out of a small office shared with three others.

• 1971, Carol King, “So Far Away”, Tapestry, Ode Records

  If I could only work this life out my way / I’d rather spend it bein' close to you.

• 2009, Reif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, Penguin Books, p.41:

  "I have some questions I need to work out. Big questions."

• workout

• exercise

• outwork