checking out

Verb

check out (third-person singular simple present checks out, present participle checking out, simple past and past participle checked out)

1. (transitive) To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
   • He checked his favorite mystery out for the twenty-third time.
2. (intransitive) To record one's departure from a workplace, hotel, restaurant, etc.
   • Be sure to check out of the hotel before noon.
3. (transitive) To examine, inspect, look at closely, ogle; to investigate; to gather information so as to make a decision.
   • He was hanging out at the beach, checking out the young women in bikinis.
4. (transitive) To obtain source code (or other material) from a source control repository so that one can modify it (and often later check in the modified version).
5. (intransitive) To become uninterested in an activity and cease to participate in more than a perfunctory manner; to become uncooperative.
   • The purpose of this exercise was to ignite reactions from students, but over the few years I used it, it backfired, culminating in a situation where I lost a significant number of the white students, who just "checked out" for the rest of the semester.2010, S. Greggory Johnson III, The Black Professoriat: Negotiating a Habitable Space in the Academy, page 189
6. (intransitive) To become catatonic or otherwise nonresponsive.
   • Even during those years, there would be a lot of times she just checked out. She would be sitting there looking at her nails and she'd just be gone.2007, Susan Nathiel, Daughters of Madness: Growing Up and Older With a Mentally Ill Mother, page 42

See all 10 meanings of check out