Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
verb
Of an investment, to make sense financially or to be expected to generate the desired returns.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: business
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To roughly calculate the expected returns of an investment.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: business
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From pencil + out (possibly based on or influenced by work out), the idea being that rough calculations are temporarily written in pencil rather than permanently written in pen.
