In the Czech lessons I’ve been working my way through I’ve noticed that the Czech host says (in English) at the end of each lesson “To close out this lesson, we would like to practise what you have just learnt.”. I would say finish rather than close out, and thought close out was a non-native usage. However recently I heard American friends using the same expression, so it seems that it is used in American English.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to close out is defined as:
– exclude; preclude
So it does exist as an expression, but the meaning doesn’t quite fit with finishing a lesson.
Do you use or have you heard this expression?
I was trying to put my finger on why the usage worked for me, and then I remembered that tennis commentators, on ESPN broadcasts in the US over the past decade, have used to close out in the following manner: “Roger Federer closes out the match with that decisive forehand winner.”
I (native American speaker) use it often—as in the Federer example above, but also as the Czech host uses it.
I concur with Jim M.: It’s very common in American English. As an American, born-and-raised, I use it and hear it often.
Another American for whom it’s nothing unusual. And for me “close out” has a feeling of “the last action in a series of actions, before the series comes to an end”. The first phrase I thought of was “Close-Out Sale”, which means the last sale we’ll ever have before we shut down. So your instructor’s use makes a lot of sense to me: We’ve done a bunch of exercises, and now this is the last one we’ll do before the class ends.
I just wanted to add that Merriam-Webster gives “close, complete, conclude, end, finish, round (off or out), terminate, wind up, wrap up” as synonyms for “close out”, which would justify the usage of that phrase in the meaning of “finish”.
I had never heard the expression before (UK English speaker). UK English would use “sell off” or “close down” I think.
As a native American English speaker, I do not use this frequently and I tend to not hear it often (in Louisiana and surrounding areas). Whenever I hear this phrase, I immediately think of closing out a cash till at the end of the day.
I would probably say “In closing” but “To close” also works. Native American English speaker from the East Coast, Philadelphia area.