in the long run

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

in the long run

1. (idiomatic) After a very long time; eventually; over a long period of time; more generally.
   • 1923, John Maynard Keynes, chapter 3, in A Tract on Monetary Reform, page 80:

     But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.

   • 1951, Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, p. 111:

     If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.

• in the long term