Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (UK und.) for a swindler to drop their ‘honest’ disguise and commence their given speciality.

1849

Sam Sly 5 May 1/1: [F]or some time the stranger does wonders; and then bets are freely laid by him. When within a few points of winning, the sharper comes out, and without relinquishing his cue—pockets the stakes.

(b) (US) to give up a specific religious denomination, in favour of free opinion on religious matters; usu. found as n. come-outer, one who espouses this view.

1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 216: I am a Christian man [...] of the sect called ‘Come-outers’.
1862		T. Winthrop John Brent 276: Find an Englishman vital enough to be a Come-outer, and you have found a man worthy to be the peer of an American with a Yankee education.

(c) (US black) to declare one’s faith in religion, to join the church.

c.1850		F.M. Whitcher Widow Bedott Papers (1863) 108: I experienced religion [...] at one o’ brother Armstrong’s protracted meetin’s [...] Them special efforts is great things — ever sence I come out I’ve felt like a new critter.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 231: A person proposing to join a church is expected first openly to come out, that is to say, to profess his religion .

(d) to declare any form of self-revelation.

1900		S.F. Call 9 Sept. 16/2: Now’s your time to come out strong or never.
1906		E. Hubbard Love, Life and Work 🌐 To utilize these stored-up thoughts, you must express them to others; and to be able to express them well your soul has to soar into this subconscious realm [...] In other words, you must ‘come out’ – get out of self – away from self-consciousness, into the region of partial oblivion – away from the boundaries of time and the limitations of space.
1915		Day Book (Chicago) 16 Apr. 1/1: Mayor-elect William Hale Thompson [...] has come out strong against the sort of work now being done.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 149: Argument would be futile — Burne had come out as a pacifist.
1947		S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (2001) 109: I never have thought of coming out as a Negro.
1976		Russo ‘Camp’ in Levine Gay Men (1979) 209: We now have ‘closet’ opera fans and people ‘coming out’ as vegetarians.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 10 Oct. 7: She ‘came out’ on Italian television, and admitted to having been an agent for the KGB.
2000		Indep. Rev. 22 Jan. 5: ‘It’s not that I had a deep, dark secret,’ he said in his coming-out interview.

(e) (gay) to declare oneself openly as a homosexual [senses 1b/1c above but note come out of the closet under closet n.].

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1949		‘Swasarnt Nerf’ et al. Gay Girl’s Guide 5: come out: To be initiated into the mysteries of homosexuality.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 108: Miss Destiny [...] has begun to tell me about when she first came out and she became Miss Destiny.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 52: Carol’s come out [...] She’s gay.
1982		A. Maupin Further Tales of the City (1984) 54: Maybe he’ll come out [...] and offer me an exclusive on the story.
1994		R.P. McNamara Times Square Hustler 48: When I came out, I came all the way out [...] I used to wear the spike heels, the dress, the wig.
2000		Indep. on Sun. 27 Feb. 26: Mr Geffen’s homosexuality is in itself no secret. He ‘came out’ in 1992.
2014		D. MacShane Prison Diaries 356: I like Crispin, who went through an agonising period as an MP [...] as he decided about coming out as gay.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 203: She tells me lots of inside stuff about celebrities [...] like George Clooney’s actually gay …. Yeah. But he doesn’t come out because it’d be bad for business.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 49: ‘We traded coming out stories when he first came on board’.