buy out

Verb

buy out (third-person singular simple present buys out, present participle buying out, simple past and past participle bought out)

1. (idiomatic, transitive) to purchase the entire stock or extent of something
   • […] the present Earl had no colour or pretence of right to the estate; and yet the appellants had thought fit to buy him out, […]1784, Josiah Brown, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords., Reports of cases, upon appeals and writs of error, in the high court of Parliament, from the year 1701 to the year 1779. Volume 11...
   • […] and when he complained met with the reply that if he did not like his partner's methods he could either clear out or buy him out.2006, Percy Harris, Forty Years in and Out of Parliament, page 18
2. (transitive) to purchase the ownership of a company
3. To close someone's contract by paying him or her a sum of money, the terms of which are often stated in the contract itself.
   • A standard NHL contract, agreed to by both players and owners, has what is called a buy-out clause. If a player's performance deteriorates to the point that he is put on waivers and there are no takers, meaning nobody in the NHL wants him, his club can buy him out at one-third of what's left on the...1986, Punch Imlach, Heaven and Hell in the NHL, page 149
4. (transitive) To gain release for (a person) from military service by payment of money.

   Synonyms:

   buy off

5. (US, dated, intransitive, slang) To avoid a punishment or escape a difficult situation.
   • You always manage to buy out at the last second.