Definition of "look"

look

/lʊk/

verb
third-person singular simple present looks, present participle looking, simple past and past participle looked
1. To try to see, to pay attention to with one’s eyes.
  1. (intransitive) As an intransitive verb, often with "at".
    Quotations
    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.
    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.
    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.
    1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
    Timothy Leary's dead. No, no no no, he's outside, looking in.
    1968, Ray Thomas (lyrics and music), “Legend of a Mind”, in In Search of the Lost Chord, performed by The Moody Blues
  2. (transitive, colloquial) As a transitive verb, often in the imperative; chiefly takes relative clause as direct object.
    Quotations
    Look how they massacred my boy.
    1972, The Godfather
2. To appear, to seem.
  Quotations
  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.
  c. 1701-03, Joseph Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c.‎, Dedication
  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.
  1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company
  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.
  1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess‎
  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.
  2012, Chelsea 6-0 Wolves‎
3. (copulative) To give an appearance of being.
  Quotations
  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 […].
  1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, chapter 6, Monk Samson
4. (intransitive, often with "for") To search for, to try to find.
5. To face or present a view.
  Quotations
  Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD's house, which looketh eastward:
  1769, Benjamin Blayney (editor), King James Bible, Oxford standard text, Ezekiel, xi, 1
  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.
  1905, [Edward Plunkett,] Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegāna‎, London: Elkin Mathews, […]
6. To expect or anticipate.
  Quotations
  "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,
  2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World/Ballantine Books, page 108
  Gloster, what ere we like,thou art Protector,And lookest to command the Prince and Realme.
  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, [Act I, scene i]
7. (transitive) To express or manifest by a look.
  Quotations
  Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
  c. 1815, Lord Byron, Waterloo
8. (transitive, often with "to") To make sure of, to see to.
  Quotations
  "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. […]
  1898, Homer, translated by Samuel Butler, The Odyssey
9. (dated, sometimes figurative) To show oneself in looking.
  Quotations
  I have […] more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.
  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, [Act INDUCTION, scene ii]
10. (transitive, archaic or dialectal) To check, to make sure (of something).
  Quotations
  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.
  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, […], part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), page 151
11. (transitive, obsolete) To look at; to turn the eyes toward.
  Quotations
  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, […].
  1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
12. (transitive, obsolete) To seek; to search for.
  Quotations
  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.
  c. 1552–1599, Edmund Spenser, unidentified sonnet
13. (transitive, obsolete) To influence, overawe, or subdue by looks or presence.
  Quotations
  A Spirit fit to start into an Empire, And look the World to Law.
  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
  Ovid might have evaded her entreaties by means of an excuse. But her eyes were irresistible: they looked him into submission in an instant.
  1882, Wilkie Collins, Heart and Science
14. (baseball) To look at a pitch as a batter without swinging at it.
interjection
1. Pay attention.
noun
plural looks
1. The action of looking; an attempt to see.
2. (often plural) Physical appearance, visual impression.
  Quotations
  He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. […] But she said she must go back, and when they joined the crowd again her partner was haled off with a frightened look to the royal circle, […]
  1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919
3. A facial expression.

Definition of "look"

look

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interjection

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