Word.ws English Dictionary

ironing out

ironing out is the present participle and gerund of iron out.

Meaning of iron out

Verb

iron out (third-person singular simple present irons out, present participle ironing out, simple past and past participle ironed out)

  1. (transitive) To remove (a crease or creases) with an iron.
    • That shirt still has a few more wrinkles to iron out.
  2. (transitive) To make (something) flat or smooth as if with an iron.
    • Dilatation of this type “irons out the folds” of the urethra, giving better drainage of the paraurethral glands, stimulating circulation and promoting rapid healing, especially when small doses (7½ gr. q.i.d.) of one of the triple-sulfonamides are given as an adjunct.1951 January, Gordon W. Reynolds, “The Female Urethra and Chronic Urethritis”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 1, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 34
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To resolve (a dispute); to solve (a problem).
    • Let's just sit down and iron out an agreement on this issue.
  4. (slang, transitive) To thrash or beat up; to overwhelm in a fight.
    • It was a WhatsApp message saying, 'do you want to fight Christmas time/December? Exhibition, who ever you want'. […] Of course I would [fight a YouTuber] - especially Jake Paul! I'd iron him out. He wouldn't fight me though, would he?2023 July 25, Jack Evanoff, quoting Carl Froch, “"Iron him out" - Former champion reveals talks about potential fight with Jake Paul”, in Sportskeeda
  5. (slang, transitive) To kill.
    • ‘I’ll f***king run out of the crowd with a f***king pillowcase, put it over his nut and just suffocate him.[’] […] He explained: ‘I think that’s the move because no-one’s going to iron him out and he needs to go don’t he, this geezer?[’]2023 June 27, Lucy Norris, “Danny Dyer vows to ‘kill Putin’ and explains how we would do it in explosive rant”, in Metro

Questions about ironing out

What is ironing out the present participle and gerund of?
Ironing out is the present participle and gerund of iron out.

Words near ironing out in the dictionary

  1. ironing baskets
  2. ironing board
  3. ironing boards
  4. ironing cloth
  5. ironing cloths
  6. ironing out
  7. ironing pad
  8. ironing pads
  9. ironing-board
  10. ironing-boards
  11. ironings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ironing out (page history and authors); iron out (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: “ironing out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ironing_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.