From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishserve something ↔ out phrasal verb1 SPEND TIMEto complete a particular period of time in prison or doing a job Dillon’s almost served out his sentence (=in prison). The Senator’s illness means he may not serve out his term.2 British EnglishDFGIVE to put food onto plates Serve out the rice, will you? → serve→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
serve out• Then he served it out, clinching the set when a Chang forehand sailed long.• He came back and served three out of four aces.• This distressing situation served to bring out the fact that Nagumo had been assigned two tactical missions which were essentially incompatible.• One of the easier Lyrical Ballads will serve to bring out the main points of critical debate.• The new Henman reminded himself that he had not yet dropped serve and set out to maintain that.• It was the type of sentence that would have been stricken from his record had he served it out without further problems.serve out ... term• The unspoken assumption in all the speculation is that Yeltsin is too sick to serve out his four-year term. 