Word.ws English Dictionary

come out of the woodwork

come out of the woodwork verb: to appear or emerge unexpectedly or inexplicably, frequently in large numbers or quantity.

Verb

come out of the woodwork (third-person singular simple present comes out of the woodwork, present participle coming out of the woodwork, simple past came out of the woodwork, past participle come out of the woodwork)

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic) To appear or emerge unexpectedly or inexplicably, frequently in large numbers or quantity.
    • He won the lottery last year and he has had old "friends" and distant relatives coming out of the woodwork ever since.
    • [...] 90-day wonders [...] were kicked around by harassed Regulars who were [...] just too busy to take time to spare the feelings of those strange creatures who came out of the woodwork and wanted the privileges of officers, without being fully prepared to do the work of officers.1947 May, Colonel S. Legree, “We Must Get Together”, in Infantry Journal, volume 60, number 5, page 26

Synonyms of come out of the woodwork

Antonyms

Forms of come out of the woodwork

third-person singular presentcomes out of the woodwork
present participlecoming out of the woodwork
pastcame out of the woodwork
past participlecome out of the woodwork

Origin of come out of the woodwork

From the idea of insects crawling out from inside the woodwork in a house.

Questions about come out of the woodwork

What does come out of the woodwork mean?
Come out of the woodwork means to appear or emerge unexpectedly or inexplicably, frequently in large numbers or quantity.
What part of speech is come out of the woodwork?
Come out of the woodwork is a verb.
What is the past tense of come out of the woodwork?
The past tense of come out of the woodwork is came out of the woodwork.

Words near come out of the woodwork in the dictionary

  1. come out in
  2. come out in the wash
  3. come out of one's shell
  4. come out of the broom closet
  5. come out of the closet
  6. come out of the woodwork
  7. come out on top
  8. come out smelling like a rose
  9. come out smelling of roses
  10. come out swinging
  11. come out with

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come out of the woodwork (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-come out of the woodwork.ogg.

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