From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishin the long runin the long runLONG TIMElater in the future, not immediately → long-term Moving to Spain will be better for you in the long run. → run
Examples from the Corpus
in the long run• And in the long run. it will help to ensure continuing good health.• By putting their money as well as their trust into credit, they are in the long run paying more, not less.• Besides, in the long run, what good would it do?• But in the long run the outcome of the race between food production and population growth remains too hard to call.• What might I do in the long run?• All our hard work will be worth it in the long run.• He will not in the long run profit from arrangements that turn the surviving research institutes into training grounds for emigrant specialists.• Your educated boys went at it a little more privately and gracefully, but sometimes destroyed more people in the long run.• Besides which, in the long run it came down to the word of four people against one. 