From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishin the long run/termin the long run/termused when talking about what will happen at a later time or when something is finished All our hard work will be worth it in the long run. → long
Examples from the Corpus
in the long run/term• Arguably, however, the implications of the Manchester North-West result were to become more apparent in the long term.• However limited its immediate effects, the ideology of Enlightened Despotism was important in the long term.• It invites us to reflect on history with a slower pulse-rate, history in the longer term.• The consequences of violating this rule had always been unhappy in the long run and not infrequently in the short.• I don't know what good it did David in the long run because what it did was cost a lot of money.• The funding to do anything, however, must in the long run derive from national resources.• But in the long run, it has proved impossible to continue down this path.• Yet the saving of money, in the long run, was more important to Mowat than the saving of scenery. 