Word.ws English Dictionary

looking up and down

looking up and down is the present participle and gerund of look up and down.

Meaning of look up and down

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see look, up, and, down.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To scrutinize every aspect of someone's appearance, as to make a judgement or first impression of them.
    • He looked her up and down. Sucked on the cigar.2021, Michael Farris Smith, chapter 52, in Nick, New York; Boston; London: Little, Brown and Company, page 261

Questions about looking up and down

What is looking up and down the present participle and gerund of?
Looking up and down is the present participle and gerund of look up and down.

Words near looking up and down in the dictionary

  1. looking the part
  2. looking through
  3. looking to
  4. looking under rocks
  5. looking up
  6. looking up and down
  7. looking up to
  8. looking upon
  9. looking-glass
  10. looking-glasses
  11. Lookingglass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: looking up and down (page history and authors); look up and down (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:

Cite this entry: “looking up and down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/looking_up_and_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.