Lucky.

A.
Perhaps the meaning depends on which variant of the language you speak. My variant is American.

Yes it means to be lucky.

I typically use it specifically when referring to moments when the person who "lucked out" wasn't even aware of the thing they were lucky with before it happened.

Such as when designing a process; if some variable wasn't even accounted for during the design and it just so happened that the designed process handles that variable anyway. That would be a situation where the designer "lucked out" in my mind. Though I'm sure other people may not use the term so specifically.

Andrew H.
www.MotoTribology.com

Well I see that is actually past tense, so it means you "were lucky", or "I was lucky".
"I lucked out by getting a high number in the military draft birthday lottery and did not have to go to Vietnam"

Even better used when occurance of the lucky event had little, or nothing to do with actual merit.

Reality used to affect the way we thought. Now we somehow believe that what we think affects reality.

English English: Lucky.

A.

A. I think it's short for, "luck got me out of a jam."

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Specifically, it means coming out on the positive side of an experience, particularly when there was a good chance that you wouldn't.

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Thanks @Stevenal
I saw that page too and wanted to poll English speakers from the four countries mentioned to see if they (we) followed the pattern.

I'm British and had always thought it meant "unlucky" until a (fellow Brit) colleague recently used it to mean "lucky".

Steve

Another brit here who would see this as being unlucky or running out of luck.

Seems to be opposite in the US?!

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Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

Further research says it was in common usage during WWII, to refer to soldiers who were killed or wounded, but perhaps, that has more to do with RLS' epithet from Treasure Island, “Thems that die’ll be the lucky ones.” and the fact that getting wounded would get you home PDQ.

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I've taken it as 'gotten out of a sticky situation by luck'

As in the opposite of 'lucked in'

"I wanted to go to the Senators game, but couldn't find tickets. I lucked in because my wife's sister didn't want to use her season tickets tonight"

vs

"I didn't want to work Saturday, and I lucked out because one of the other guys told my boss he had to come in anyway"

Unlucky for Aussies.
As in, I didn't have any luck with xxxxx, I lucked out

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)

Lucky for me...
When you luck out, something goes in your favor but took up all of your current allotment of luck.

"Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively."
-Dalai Lama XIV

American here, lucked out to me means you got lucky. Never heard anyone use the phrase lucked in before.

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SomptingGuy,

I decided to buy a house in Toronto for $160,000 in 2004. It is worth way, way more than that now. I lucked out.

--
JHG

My wife was born in Sydney, and she says that "lucked out" has always meant that she got lucky, and she has never heard the phrase "lucked in". Then I asked my neighbours, a couple in their 40's. She is Australian, he English. She says it means good luck, he says bad. So the best we can make of this is that the English language is complicated, particularly the colloquial bits.

If lucked out means lucky, is the same understanding applied to miss / missed out?

I think for both examples, context can / does play a part in the usage.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)

No, "lucked out" is an idiom. Not logical, but common usage in some countries.

Yes and no, miss out/missed out can also be an idiom, or a phrasal verb.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)

But it would follow the same thought. To luck out is to get lucky, and the miss out is to miss something.

I've heard "lucked into" such as, he lucked into that position. I've never heard just "lucked in" though.

Andrew H.
www.MotoTribology.com

Is "lucked" even a word?

From Cambridge dictionary.
luck out
— phrasal verb with luck verb
infml

lucked out = lucky
out of luck = unlucky

@kipfoot: I checked your location and it's more evidence that this idiom means "lucky" among American (US and Canadian) English speakers. Thanks.

Steve

In portuguese we have the word "sortudo" which means a guy who wins a great euromilions prize JACKPOT, I think it is similar to lucked out in English, IMO.

luis