Word.ws English Dictionary

flunk out

flunk out verb: to fail to finish school, or a given subject, program or course, due to academic shortcomings; i.e., to have too many flunking or failing grades (marks).

Verb

flunk out (third-person singular simple present flunks out, present participle flunking out, simple past and past participle flunked out)

  1. (idiomatic) To fail to finish school, or a given subject, program or course, due to academic shortcomings; i.e., to have too many flunking or failing grades (marks).
    • He flunked out of high school as a youth, but finished school later in life.
  2. (idiomatic) (of an educator or institution) To impose failing grades on (a student), often requiring a retaking of the course or academic year.
    • They could simply have replied, "No, we're way too square. And until you do come up with an answer, stick to the syllabus so that we don't have to flunk out your mixed-up students when we get them next quarter."1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN

Forms of flunk out

third-person singular presentflunks out
present participleflunking out
past participleflunked out
pastflunked out

Questions about flunk out

What does flunk out mean?
Flunk out means to fail to finish school, or a given subject, program or course, due to academic shortcomings; i.e., to have too many flunking or failing grades (marks).
What part of speech is flunk out?
Flunk out is a verb.
What is the past tense of flunk out?
The past tense of flunk out is flunked out.

Words near flunk out in the dictionary

  1. flunisolide
  2. flunitrazepam
  3. flunixin
  4. flunixine
  5. flunk
  6. flunk out
  7. flunked
  8. flunked out
  9. flunkee
  10. flunkees
  11. flunker

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flunk out (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-flunk out.ogg.

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