ride out

present singular third person rides out · participle present riding out · past rode out · participle past ridden out

1. transitivenauticalTo survive in a storm (about a ship) and keep afloat.

   But the young man himself escaped, for he possessed a magical white stone, and when he through it ahead it clove a smooth passage for his canoe through the angry water; so he rode out the storm in safety.

   1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 314

2. broadlyidiomatictransitiveTo tackle a difficult situation and survive; to survive through; to weather.

   “We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again,” Mr. Johnson said at an evening news conference […]

   2022 January 4, Megan Specia, quoting Boris Johnson, “Britain can ‘ride out’ the Omicron wave without a strict lockdown, Boris Johnson says.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   3 more examples

   In deep underground basing, missiles are buried in tunnels in mountainsides where they are able to ride out a nuclear attack. Following the attack the missiles dig themselves out of the tunnels to the surface and launch themselves.

   1989, Barbara Goss Levi, Mark Sakitt, The Future of Land Based-Strategic Missiles, page 174

   Following chaos on Wall Street yesterday, and in which Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs became the latest US financial institutions to come under fire, the chancellor attempted to reassure the public that Britain could ride out the crisis.

   2008 September 18, Graeme Wearden, quoting Alistair Darling, “Markets slide again but chancellor says Britain can ride out the crisis”, in The Guardian

   And the smiling lunk with his arm round the teenage girl – who he denies he had sex with later that evening – is living in a 30-room mansion on a 98-acre estate (which even his monarch brother reportedly doesn’t know how he pays for), joshing away at family funerals, and just sort of … riding it out, each time another of his lies about this story is exposed.

   2025 October 17, Marina Hyde, “Punish Prince Andrew? This is no meritocracy, I’m afraid – you get the royal family you didn’t vote for”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

3. intransitiveslangAfrican-American VernacularTo go out in a vehicle with one's friends or crew.

   Let's ride out and see what we can get into.

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see ride, out.