balance out

Verb

balance out (third-person singular simple present balances out, present participle balancing out, simple past and past participle balanced out)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To attain balance through the contrasting or reciprocating effect of different elements.
   • If you consider all the negative and all the positive factors, it should balance out to something acceptable.
   • "It's something they look forward to and they get as much out of helping us as we do from receiving help and it all sort of balances out in the end."2025 September 2, Rebekah Logan, Rebekah Wilson, quoting Eddie Smiles, “Service provides 'second family' to tackle loneliness”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 13 Jan 2026
2. (idiomatic, transitive) To counteract with a contrasting element so as to achieve balance.
   • You can add some honey to balance out the sourness of the lemon.
   • The city says that's mostly due to Calgarians having more than enough babies to balance out deaths.2017 July 20, Rachel Ward, “Calgary grows by 11,166 people due mainly to more babies, says census”, in CBC News, archived from the original on 29 Aug 2018