look out
English
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Verb
editlook out (third-person singular simple present looks out, present participle looking out, simple past and past participle looked out)
- (intransitive, idiomatic) To be vigilant and aware often as an imperative to alert a person to danger.
- Synonyms: take care, watch out
- While you're in the city center, look out for the dodgy street vendors.
- 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
- Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”
- (transitive, idiomatic) To find by looking: to hunt out.
- 1891, Henry James, The Pupil[1], page 144:
- Morgan pulled a Greek lexicon toward him (he used a Greek-German), to look out a word, instead of asking it of Pemberton.
- 1913, D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, Penguin, published 2006, page 14:
- Then she straightened the kitchen, lit the lamp, mended the fire, looked out the washing for the next day, and put it to soak.
- 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 58”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:
- I had not seen her since long before the war, and I had to look out her address in the telephone-book.
- To be facing (used with "on").
- A spacious room that looks out on the sea.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see look, out.
- 2021, Michael Farris Smith, chapter 30, in Nick, New York, Boston, London: Little, Brown and Company, page 159:
- On the morning of the eighth day, he found himself looking out across the river.
- (informal, intransitive) Clipping of look out for (someone)
- Hey man, I know it costs four dollars but I only have three. Can you please look out?
Derived terms
editTranslations
editto look from within to the outside
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to be vigilant and aware
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to be facing
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Anagrams
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