look out

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Verb

look out (third-person singular simple present looks out, present participle looking out, simple past and past participle looked out)

1. (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.”

2. (transitive, idiomatic) To find by looking: to hunt out.
   • 1891, Henry James, The Pupil‎, 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, : 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.

3. To be facing (used with "on").

   A spacious room that looks out on the sea.

4. 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.

5. (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

Translations

Anagrams

• outlook