look
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: lo͝ok
ipa: /lʊk/
homophone: luck stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
note: some Northern Enɡlish dialects, esp. Bolton, Geordie
ipa: /luːk/
note: Liverpool variant
ipa: [luːx]
ipa: /lʉk/
homophone: Luke
rhymes: -ʊk
rhymes: -uːk
Forms: form: looks
form: looking
form: looked
form: looked
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: look
form: look
form: looked
form: look
form: lookest
form: looked
form: lookedst
form: looks
form: looketh
form: looked
form: look
form: looked
form: look
form: looked
form: look
form: -
form: looking
form: looked
Etymology: From Middle English loken, lokien, from Old English lōcian, from Proto-West Germanic *lōkōn. Further origin unknown, no certain cognates outside Germanic. Cognate with Scots luke, luik, leuk (“to look, see”), West Frisian lôkje, loaitsje (“to look”), Dutch loeken (“to look”), German Low German löken. Likely also related to German lugen (“to peek”), Alemannic German luege (“to look”), Yiddish לוגן (lugn). Possibly related to Sanskrit लोक् (lok, “to see, behold”) (from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“light”) in the sense of "illuminating" (cf. related word रुच् (ruc) "to shine, illuminate")).
Senses: examples: text: They kept looking at me.
text: Don’t look in the closet.
text: Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady.[…]She looked around expectantly, and recognizing Mrs. Cooke's maid[…]Miss Thorn greeted her with a smile which greatly prepossessed us in her favor.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: Timothy Leary's dead.
 No, no no no, he's outside, looking in.
ref: 1968, Ray Thomas, “Legend of a Mind”, in In Search of the Lost Chord, performed by The Moody Blues:
glosses: To try to see, to pay attention to with one’s eyes.
As an intransitive verb, often with "at".
troponyms: glance
examples: text: Look what you did to him!
text: Look who's back!
text: Look how they massacred my boy.
ref: 1972, The Godfather:
glosses: To try to see, to pay attention to with one’s eyes.
As a transitive verb, often in the imperative; chiefly takes relative clause as direct object.
examples: text: It looks as if it’s going to rain soon. or It looks like it’s going to rain soon. or It looks like rain [is coming].
text: Our new boss looks to be friendly.
text: It looks as if [or like] I'm stuck with you.
text: You didn't use to look so dismal, but now you look/are looking positively unhappy.
text: (UK) He always looks like scoring a goal if not two.
text: THERE is a pleaſure in owning obligations which it is a pleaſure to have received; but ſhould I publiſh any favours done me by your Lordſhip, I am afraid it would look more like vanity, than gratitude.
ref: c. 1701-03, Joseph Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c., Dedication:
text: So this was my future home, I thought![…]Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
ref: 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: You wake up next morning on what looks like Salisbury Plain, only here you climb up the side of every combe, round the end and out the other side.
ref: 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, pages 264-265:
text: He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy.
ref: 1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
text: Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety. She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
text: And when scrum-half Ben Youngs, who had a poor game, was burgled by opposite number Irakli Abuseridze and the ball shipped down the line to Irakli Machkhaneli, it looked like Georgia had scored a try of their own, but the winger's foot was in touch.
ref: 2011 September 18, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 41-10 Georgia”, in BBC Sport:
text: Chelsea's youngsters, who looked lively throughout, then combined for the second goal in the seventh minute. Romeu's shot was saved by Wolves goalkeeper Dorus De Vries but Piazon kept the ball alive and turned it back for an unmarked Bertrand to blast home.
ref: 2012, Chelsea 6-0 Wolves:
text: From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.
ref: 2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:
glosses: To appear, to seem.
examples: text: That painting looks nice.
text: You’re looking worried. Whaddya thinking about?
text: You looked a fool when you slipped on a banana peel.
text: Once, slipping the money clandestinely, just in the act of taking leave, he slipt it not into her hand but on the floor, and another had it; whereupon the poor Monk, coming to know it, looked mere despair for some days[…].
ref: 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, chapter 6, Monk Samson:
glosses: To give an appearance of being.
glosses: To search for, to try to find.
raw_tags: with "for"
examples: text: The hotel looks over the valleys of the HinduKush.
text: 1769, Benjamin Blayney (editor), King James Bible, Oxford standard text, Ezekiel, xi, 1,
Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD's house, which looketh eastward:
text: Wornath-Mavai lieth in a valley and looketh towards the south, and on the slopes of it Sish rested among the flowers when Sish was young.
ref: 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To face or present a view.
examples: text: I look to each hour for my lover’s arrival.
text: 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queene, Book VI, Canto XI, 1750, The Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 4, page 139,
text: "Ain't gone be no Rikers Island for you next time," I warned him. "You get tapped on another gun charge and you looking at some upstate time."
Looking each Hour into Death's Mouth to fall,
ref: 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 108:
text: Gloster, what ere we like, thou art Protector,
And lookest to command the Prince and Realme.
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
glosses: To expect or anticipate.
examples: text: Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
ref: c. 1815, Lord Byron, Waterloo:
glosses: To express or manifest by a look.
examples: text: "Look to it yourself, father," answered Telemachus, "for they say you are the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other mortal man who can compare with you.[…]
ref: 1898, Homer, translated by Samuel Butler, The Odyssey:
glosses: To make sure of, to see to.
raw_tags: with "to"
examples: text: Look out of the window [i.e. lean out] while I speak to you.
text: I have[…]more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.
ref: c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act INDUCTION, scene ii]:
glosses: To show oneself in looking.
examples: text: Finding it was like to overblow, we took in our Sprit-ſail, and ſtood by to hand the Fore-ſail; but making foul Weather, we look'd the Guns were all faſt, and handed the Miſſen.
ref: 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Great Storm Described, the Long-Boat Sent to Fetch Water, the Author Goes with It to Discover the Country. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), page 151:
glosses: To check, to make sure (of something).
examples: text: Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.[…]She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now,[…].
ref: 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
glosses: To look at; to turn the eyes toward.
examples: c. 1552–1599, Edmund Spenser, unidentified sonnet,
Looking my love, I go from place to place,
Like a young fawn that late hath lost the hind;
And seek each where, where last I saw her face,
Whose image yet I carry fresh in mind.
glosses: To seek; to search for.
examples: text: to look down opposition
text: 1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy, Act 3, Scene 1, 1701, The Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas Written by John Dryden, Esq, Volume 2, page 464,
A Spirit fit to start into an Empire,
And look the World to Law.
text: Ovid might have evaded her entreaties by means of an excuse. But her eyes were irresistible: they looked him into submission in an instant.
ref: 1882, Wilkie Collins, Heart and Science:
glosses: To influence, overawe, or subdue by looks or presence.
examples: text: The fastball caught him looking.
text: Clem Labine struck Mays out looking at his last at bat.
text: It's unusual for Mays to strike out looking. He usually takes a cut at it.
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To look at a pitch as a batter without swinging at it.
Synonyms: word: behold
word: clock
word: look
word: geek
word: kool
word: regard
word: squizz
word: take a butcher's
word: take a dekko
word: take a gander
word: vada
word: viddy
word: view
Hypernyms: word: examine
word: get a load of
word: observe
word: pay attention
word: see
Hyponyms: word: look over
word: luster
word: lustrate
word: overlook
word: survey
Derived terms: sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look about
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look after
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look ahead
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look ahead to
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look around
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look at
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look at me
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look-at-me
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look away
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look back
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look down
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look down on
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look down upon
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look for
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look forward
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look forward to
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look in on
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look into
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look it
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look on
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look out
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look out for
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look over
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look past
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look round
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look through
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look to
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look up
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look upon
sense: phrasal verbs derived from look (verb)
word: look up to
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: a cat can look at a king
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: a cat may look at a king
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: as soon as look at someone
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: belook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: does someone look like
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: don't look a gift horse in the mouth
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: don't look at me
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: don't look now
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: forelook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: lookability
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: lookable
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look a fright
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look ahere
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look alike
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: lookalike
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look-alike
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look alive
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look as if one had lost a shilling and found sixpence
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look as if one has been dragged through a hedge backwards
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look as if one has lost a shilling and found sixpence
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look-at-me
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look at oneself in the mirror
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look at you
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look before one leaps
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look before you leap
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look beyond
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look beyond the end of one's nose
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look beyond the tip of one's nose
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look daggers
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look down one's nose
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: lookee
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: looker
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look for a dog to kick
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look for number one
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look for trouble
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look here
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look in the face
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: lookit
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like a bomb has hit it
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like one swallowed a bug
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like something the cat brought in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like something the cat dragged in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like something the cat's dragged in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like who did it and ran
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look like who did it and ran away
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look lively
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look off
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on as
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look one's age
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look one's best
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look oneself
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on the black side
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on the bright side
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on the bright side of it
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on the dark side
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on the dark side of it
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on the gloomy side
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look on the positive side
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look-out book
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look out for Number One
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look out for number one
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: lookout
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look-out
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look over one's shoulder
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look past the end of one's nose
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look past the tip of one's nose
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look-see
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look sharp
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look shy
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look snappy
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look someone in the eye
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look the other way
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look the part
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look through rose-colored glasses
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look through rose-tinted glasses
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look under rocks
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look up and down
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look what the cat dragged in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look what the cat drug in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look what the cat's brought in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look what the cat's dragged in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look who's talking
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look who the cat dragged in
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: look you
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: made you look
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: mislook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: never look a gift horse in the mouth
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: no-look
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: not look a day over
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: not much to look at
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: onlooker
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: outlook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: outward-looking
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: overlook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: relook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: underlook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: uplook
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: you don't look at the mantelpiece when you poke the fire
sense: other terms derived from look (verb)
word: you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire
Related terms: word: eye