turn out to be (something)

idiom

—used to say that something or someone eventually becomes something or is found to have a particular identity, quality, ability, etc.

The play turned out to be a success.

The animal in the bushes turned out to be a cat.

Examples of turn out to be (something) in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The drama, which premieres out of competition at Venice Film Festival on Sept. 3, follows the parallel lives of two artists who turn out to be the same person. —Nick Vivarelli, Variety, 28 Aug. 2025

This has been one of the great surprises of the modern era: physical tasks that are easy for humans turn out to be very difficult for robots, while algorithms are increasingly able to mimic our intellect. —Webb Wright, Wired News, 24 Aug. 2025

Strip away the occasional ceasefires and peace deals that turn out to be neither; what remains is a naked contest that originated long ago and stubbornly refuses to go. —Hussein Agha, New Yorker, 22 Aug. 2025

If that does turn out to be the case, that could be quite a tempting proposition. —New Atlas, 22 Aug. 2025

And that has implications across the energy industry: Many hardware manufacturers and utilities are nervous about making expensive infrastructure investments to serve a future power demand boom that may turn out to be far smaller than what today’s most extreme scenarios foresee. —Tim McDonnell, semafor.com, 21 Aug. 2025

Carrie and Big slept together on their first real date, kicking off what would turn out to be a lifelong love affair. —Nicole Briese, People.com, 15 Aug. 2025

Then there is his promise to raise taxes on the rich, who turn out to be a formidable identity group when history requires it of them. —Andrea Long Chu, Vulture, 5 Aug. 2025

Robbins had no idea at the time how important this bird would turn out to be. —Scott Travers, Forbes.com, 26 July 2025