in the long run

Idioms and Phrases

Over a lengthy period of time, in the end. For example, He realized that in the long run, their argument wouldn't seem so awful . This expression, which originated as at the long run in the early 1600s, presumably alludes to a runner who continues on his course to the end. Economist John Maynard Keynes used it in a much-quoted quip about economic planning: “In the long run we are all dead.” The antonym, in the short run , meaning “over a short period of time,” dates only from the 1800s. The novelist George Eliot used both in a letter (October 18, 1879): “Mrs. Healy's marriage is surely what you expected in the long or short run.”

Related Words

• already
• belatedly
• eventually
• someday
• sooner or later
• subsequently
• ultimately