shake out

shake out (third-person singular simple present shakes out, present participle shaking out, simple past shook out, past participle shaken out)

1. (transitive, also figurative) To agitate a piece of cloth or other flexible material in order to remove dust, or to try to make it smooth and flat.
   • 2019 November 20, “Further testing requirements delay Crossrail to 2021”, in Rail, page 13:

     Tasks needed to complete Crossrail: [...] Trial run the Class 345s over many thousands of miles on the completed railway to shake out any problems and ensure the highest levels of safety and reliability when passenger service begins.

2. (nautical, transitive) To unfurl a reef from a sail
   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

     "Thunder!" he cried. "A week! I can't do that; they'd have the black spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me this blessed moment; lubbers as couldn't keep what they got, and want to nail what is another's. Is that seamanly behavior, now, I want to know? But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor lost it neither; and I'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again."

3. (idiomatic) To result or transpire.

   We are curious to see how this all shakes out.

• “shake out”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.