Speakur

Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

pencil out

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.95 in modern English

Syllables
pen-cil out
IPA
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars

Meaning

verb

Of an investment, to make sense financially or to be expected to generate the desired returns.

verb

To roughly calculate the expected returns of an investment.

Etymology

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.

Inflected Forms

pencils out (present, singular) penciling out (US, participle) pencilling out (UK, participle) penciled out (US, participle) penciled out (US, past) pencilled out (UK, participle) pencilled out (UK, past)

Questions

What does pencil out mean?
Of an investment, to make sense financially or to be expected to generate the desired returns.
Where does pencil out come from?
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.

How to pronounce pencil out

  1. Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “pencil out”.
  2. Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
  3. Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “pencil out”.
  4. Repeat and practice — Say “pencil out” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.