LOOK FOR

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of

Example:

They are searching for the missing man in the entire county

Synonyms:

look for; search; seek

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "look for"):

browse; shop (shop around; not necessarily buying)

feel (grope or feel in search of something)

grub (search about busily)

angle; fish (seek indirectly)

go after; pursue; quest after; quest for (go in search of or hunt for)

seek out (look for a specific person or thing)

scour (examine minutely)

want (hunt or look for; want for a particular reason)

gather (look for (food) in nature)

hunt (seek, search for)

leave no stone unturned (search thoroughly and exhaustively)

browse; surf (look around casually and randomly, without seeking anything in particular)

divine (search by divining, as if with a rod)

fumble; grope (feel about uncertainly or blindly)

finger (search for on the computer)

drag; dredge (search (as the bottom of a body of water) for something valuable or lost)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The banks look for the check

Sam cannot look for Sue

They look for the water

Sense 2

Meaning:

Be excited or anxious about

Synonyms:

anticipate; look for; look to

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "look for" is one way to...):

await; expect; look; wait (look forward to the probable occurrence of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "look for"):

apprehend; quail at (anticipate with dread or anxiety)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Credits

Context examples:

“Lizzy,” said he, “I was going to look for you; come into my room.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

If you plan to move, you will have the very best point of the year to look for a new apartment or house.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Furthermore, I am not going to look for a job.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Look for such a pencil, Mr. Soames, and you have got your man.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The mother, however, said: “Now go and look for some big stones, and we will fill the wicked beast’s stomach with them while he is still asleep.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

A method used to examine the lining of the breast ducts to look for abnormal tissue.

(Breast duct endoscopy, NCI Dictionary)

It may be used to look for conditions such as anemia, dehydration, malnutrition, and leukemia.

(Erythrocyte, NCI Dictionary)

His soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the worldly-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

These trials include thousands of people and look for side effects that were not seen in earlier trials.

(phase IV trial, NCI Dictionary)

Look for trans fat on the labels of processed foods, margarines and shortenings.