lock-out

Noun

lockout (plural lockouts)

1. (labour) The opposite of a strike; a labor disruption where management refuses to allow workers into a plant to work even if they are willing.
   • The first was in the Babylonian halls of the big hotel, which was the meeting place of the three commercial magnates concerned with arranging for a coal lock-out and denouncing it as a coal strike, the second was in a curious tavern, having the façade of a grocery store, where met the more...1926, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “The Ghost of Gideon Wise”, in The Incredulity of Father Brown

   Antonyms:

   strike, walkout, industrial peace, industrial action, labor action, labour action

2. The action of installing a lock to keep someone out of an area, such as eviction of a tenant by changing the lock.
3. (broadly) The exclusion of certain people from a place, event, situation, etc.
   • It's another front-row lockout for Mercedes on the starting grid of the Japanese Grand Prix.

   Antonyms:

   lock-in

4. The restriction of a population to a certain area, but allowing free movement within that region, in order to prevent the spread of disease. Compare lockdown.
5. The situation of being locked out of a building.
   • a locksmith who is willing to deal with emergency lockouts
6. A situation where the system is not responding to input.

See all 10 meanings of lockout