poke out

Verb

poke out (third-person singular simple present pokes out, present participle poking out, simple past and past participle poked out)

1. (intransitive) To be partly visible past an obstruction or obstructions.
   • Here’s the Queen, my dears, in her gilt coach, drawn by six horses. Do you see her sceptre poking out of the carriage window? She governs the nation with that.1886, Wilkie Collins, The Evil Genius, London: Chatto & Windus, Volume 1, Before the Story, Part 4, p. 41
   • “Fred’s great, perfectly great,” she said, looking down at the toe of her slipper, poking out from her pink tulle skirt.1916, Margaret Deland, chapter 5, in The Rising Tide, New York: Harper & Bros., page 69

   Synonyms:

   stick out, protrude

2. (intransitive) To emerge from behind, in, or under something.
   • Near-synonym: pop out
   • As they gazed, a white face, wet with the sweat of fear, poked out and stared down upon them with eyes in which the late terror still lived.1893, John Arthur Barry, “A Cape Horn Christmas”, in Steve Brown’s Bunyip and Other Stories, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1905, page 277

   Synonyms:

   pop out

3. (transitive) To cause (something) to protrude or emerge.
   • Near-synonym: stick out
   • Ye see then we are but as snayles, and are chaunged incontinent. And is it meet that we shoulde poke out our hornes agaynst God?1574, Arthur Golding, transl., Sermons of Master John Calvin upon the Booke of Job, London: Lucas Harison and George Byshop, Sermon 134, on Chapter 34, p. 692

   Synonyms:

   stick out

4. (transitive) To remove (something) by poking (often creating a hole in the process).
   • Near-synonyms: push out, pop out
   • Apollo then does shoot so right
     With shaft that’s sharp as well as bright,
     Hits Ephialtes in the eye;
     And Hercules that then stood by,
     Pokes out his other: farewel he.1665, John Phillips (translator), Typhon, or, The Gyants War with the Gods by Paul Scarron (1644), London: Samuel Speed, Canto 5, p. 147

   Synonyms:

   push out, pop out