luck out

English

WOTD – 13 February 2015

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

luck out (third-person singular simple present lucks out, present participle lucking out, simple past and past participle lucked out)

1. (colloquial, idiomatic) To experience great luck; to be extremely fortunate or lucky.

   I lucked out and got the last two tickets to the big show.

2. (colloquial, idiomatic) To experience a misfortune; to be unlucky.
   • 2011, Lee Child, The Affair: A Jack Reacher Novel‎^[1], Dell, →ISBN, page 168:

     The baby brother was no oil painting. He had lucked out with the genetic lottery. […] He had fallen out of the ugly tree, and hit every branch.

Related terms

• luck in

Translations

to experience great luck

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: ^{(please verify)} 三生有幸 (zh) (sānshēngyǒuxìng)

• Finnish: onnistaa (fi), käydä onni, käydä tuuri, olla onnea
• French: avoir le cul bordé de nouilles (fr) (vulgar)
• Georgian: გაუმართლებს (gaumartlebs), ბედი გაუღიმებს (bedi gauɣimebs)
• German: Schwein haben (de)
• Russian: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: tener suerte, tener un golpe de suerte
• Swedish: ha tur

Further reading

• Mark Liberman (2011 October 8) “Lucking out”, in Language Log