lock out
lock out verb: to inadvertently prevent (a person, particularly oneself) from entering a place, by leaving it locked. Also the misspelling of lockout.
Verb
lock out (third-person singular simple present locks out, present participle locking out, simple past and past participle locked out)
- To inadvertently prevent (a person, particularly oneself) from entering a place, by leaving it locked.
- I've locked myself out of my room again!
- To prevent from accessing a data structure.
- The synchronize keyword locks out all other threads trying to access the object.
- (industrial) To prevent (a person, including oneself) from powering up or turning on a machine when doing so would be dangerous (accomplished with objects such as padlocks or zip ties placed through the switch handle, for example)
- (colloquial, sometimes humorous) To be unable to concentrate.
- Bro, I am totally locked out on this assignment.
Also used as
lock out is also the misspelling of lockout.
Antonyms of lock out
Forms of lock out
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | locks out |
| present participle | locking out |
| past participle | locked out |
| past | locked out |
| Noun | |
| plural | lock outs |
Words formed from lock out
Questions about lock out
- What does lock out mean?
- Lock out means to inadvertently prevent (a person, particularly oneself) from entering a place, by leaving it locked.
- What part of speech is lock out?
- Lock out is a verb.
- What is the past tense of lock out?
- The past tense of lock out is locked out.
Words near lock out in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lock 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-lock out.wav.
Cite this entry: “lock out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lock_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
