look

Verb

look (third-person singular simple present looks, present participle looking, simple past and past participle looked)

1. (intransitive) As an intransitive verb, often with “at”.
   • They kept looking at me.
   • Don’t look in the closet.
2. (colloquial, transitive) As a transitive verb, often in the imperative; chiefly takes relative clause as direct object.
   • Look what you did to him!
   • Look who's back!
3. To appear, to seem.
   • It looks as if it’s going to rain soon. or It looks like it’s going to rain soon. or It looks like rain [is coming].
   • Our new boss looks to be friendly.
4. (copulative) To give an appearance of being.
   • What a fright you looked in that hideous outfit.
   • That painting looks nice.
5. (intransitive, often) To search for, to try to find.
6. To face or present a view.
   • The hotel looks over the valleys of the Hindu Kush.
   • Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD's house, which looketh eastward:1769, Benjamin Blayney (editor), King James Bible, Oxford standard text, Ezekiel, xi, 1
7. To expect or anticipate.
   • I look to each hour for my lover’s arrival.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queene, Book VI, Canto XI, 1750, The Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 4, page 139,
8. (transitive) To express or manifest by a look.
   • Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,c. 1815, Lord Byron, Waterloo
   • For a few seconds Mr Carlyle looked his unutterable feelings. When he did speak it was with crushing deliberation.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC
9. (often, transitive) To make sure of, to see to.
   • "Look to it yourself, father," answered Telemachus, "for they say you are the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other mortal man who can compare with you.[…]1898, Homer, translated by Samuel Butler, The Odyssey
10. (dated, figuratively, sometimes) To show oneself in looking; to peep out.
    • I have[…]more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
11. (archaic, dialectal, transitive) To check, to make sure (of something).
    • Finding it was like to overblow, we took in our Sprit-ſail, and ſtood by to hand the Fore-ſail; but making foul Weather, we look'd the Guns were all faſt, and handed the Miſſen.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Great Storm Described, the Long-Boat Sent to Fetch Water, the Author Goes with It to Discover the Country. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the...
12. (obsolete, transitive) To look at; to turn the eyes toward.
    • Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.[…]She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now,[…].1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

Interjection

1. Pay attention.
   • Look, I'm going to explain what to do, so you have to listen closely.
   • ‘Look,’ he began, and she flapped a hand to stop him. ‘For God’s sake don’t say anything that starts with “look”. Sentences like that lead anywhere and they’re always fatal.’2001, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, “Not Buried But In Turd”, in Gone Tomorrow, London: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 203

   Synonyms:

   hey, listen, listen up, look at me, see, so, well

Noun

look (plural looks)

1. The action of looking; an attempt to see.
   • Let’s have a look under the hood of the car.

   Synonyms:

   gander

2. (often, plural) Physical appearance, visual impression.
   • She got her mother’s looks.
   • I don’t like the look of the new design.
3. A facial expression.
   • He gave me a dirty look.
   • If looks could kill ...

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Look

Look

1. A surname transferred from the given name.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Look

Look

1. A surname from Chinese.