Word.ws English Dictionary

came out in the wash

came out in the wash is the simple past of come out in the wash.

Meaning of come out in the wash

Verb

come out in the wash (third-person singular simple present comes out in the wash, present participle coming out in the wash, simple past came out in the wash, past participle come out in the wash)

  1. (idiomatic) Of problems or difficulties, to work out, resolve, or become understood eventually and naturally.
    • It may look like a huge mess now, but I expect that it will all come out in the wash as time goes on.
  2. (idiomatic) Of advantages and disadvantages, to cancel each other out.
    • The number 12 bus is faster, but the number 17 stops nearer my house, so it all comes out in the wash.
  3. (idiomatic) Of the truth: to be inevitably revealed in the future.
    • You can do everything you can to hide this, but everything comes out in the wash.

Questions about came out in the wash

What is came out in the wash the simple past of?
Came out in the wash is the simple past of come out in the wash.

Words near came out in the wash in the dictionary

  1. came one's way
  2. came online
  3. came onto
  4. came out
  5. came out in
  6. came out in the wash
  7. came out of one's shell
  8. came out of the closet
  9. came out on top
  10. came out swinging
  11. came out with

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: came out in the wash (page history and authors); come out in the wash (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “came out in the wash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/came_out_in_the_wash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.