come out v.
1. in senses of self-revelation.
(a) (UK und.) for a swindler to drop their ‘honest’ disguise and commence their given speciality.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | 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.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Nature and Human Nature I 216: I am a Christian man [...] of the sect called ‘Come-outers’. | |
| 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.
| 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. | |
| 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.
| S.F. Call 9 Sept. 16/2: Now’s your time to come out strong or never. | |
| 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. | |
| Day Book (Chicago) 16 Apr. 1/1: Mayor-elect William Hale Thompson [...] has come out strong against the sort of work now being done. | |
| This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 149: Argument would be futile — Burne had come out as a pacifist. | |
| Kingsblood Royal (2001) 109: I never have thought of coming out as a Negro. | |
| ‘Camp’ in Levine Gay Men (1979) 209: We now have ‘closet’ opera fans and people ‘coming out’ as vegetarians. | |
| Indep. on Sun. Rev. 10 Oct. 7: She ‘came out’ on Italian television, and admitted to having been an agent for the KGB. | |
| Indep. Rev. 22 Jan. 5: ‘It’s not that I had a deep, dark secret,’ he said in his coming-out interview. | |
 | Trans 240: Many [Irish] journalists, celebrities and ordinary people were moved to come out—about [...] having travelled to England for an abortion. |
(e) (gay) to declare oneself openly as a homosexual or trans-sexual [senses 1b/1c above but note come out of the closet under closet n.].
| ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants. | |
| et al. Gay Girl’s Guide 5: come out: To be initiated into the mysteries of homosexuality. | |
| City of Night 108: Miss Destiny [...] has begun to tell me about when she first came out and she became Miss Destiny. | |
| Serial 52: Carol’s come out [...] She’s gay. | |
| Further Tales of the City (1984) 54: Maybe he’ll come out [...] and offer me an exclusive on the story. | |
| 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. | |
| Indep. on Sun. 27 Feb. 26: Mr Geffen’s homosexuality is in itself no secret. He ‘came out’ in 1992. | |
| Prison Diaries 356: I like Crispin, who went through an agonising period as an MP [...] as he decided about coming out as gay. | |
| 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. | |
| End of Gender 179: Unlike the decision to come out as trans [...] the decision to detransition is usually undertaken quietly and privately. | |
| Razorblade Tears 49: ‘We traded coming out stories when he first came on board’. | |
| Trans 189: She ‘came out’ as transgender at eleven years old. |
2. (W.I.) to be born in poverty or in some unknown place; esp. in question ‘where you come out?’.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage. |
In phrases
(US campus) to be humiliated.
| Sl. U. |
see under bag n.2
see under closet n.
to start work on one’s first ever job.
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
(US) to grow up, lit. to leave one’s home life for that of the streets and the larger world.
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 173: Most of the cats my age, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, were just coming out of the house. | |
| Juba to Jive 107: Come out v. [...] from the seventies [...] to be introduced to ‘happenings’ in the hip world. |
(US black) of a Southerner who has moved to a Northern ciity, to abandon one’s rural lifestyle for that of the city.
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 326: The younger cats who haven’t come out of the woods yet, young cats who drink a lot of liquor [...] who still have most of the Southern ways. |
(US) to make a bet on.
| N.Y. Clipper 2 July 1/3: The Jersey men [...] although they were boiling over with confidence in their favorite, would not ‘come out’ much on her. |
see under strong adv.
(orig. US) to speak openly, candidly, tactlessly.
| John Henry 56: He [...] comes out with the assertion that I couldn’t write a postal card to a friend and finish right. | |
| Enemy to Society 22: ‘Suppose, jest suppose now, mind you, Mr. Axtell, suppose as you — as you —’ He did not have the courage to come out with it. | |
| Gilt Kid 278: Why don’t you come right out with it and ask me if I’ve got a fag instead of sparring about with these damfool questions. | |
| They Die with Their Boots Clean 78: Never, definitely never, have I heard such a load of Sweet Fanny Adams as this horrible man comes out with. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Jimmy Brockett 101: After a while she comes out with: ‘I don’t expect you have time for your old friends, now’. | |
| 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 226: She ain’t coming out with the truth. |