looking

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlʊkɪŋ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʊkɪŋ
• Hyphenation: look‧ing

Etymology 1

From Middle English lokinge, lokinde, lokande, lokende, from Old English lōciende, present participle of Old English lōcian (“to look”), equivalent to look +‎ -ing.

Verb

looking

1. present participle and gerund of look
2. as the last part of compound adjectives: relating to or having the appearance of.

   dorky-looking

   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court:

     By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.

   • 1988 September 12, New York Magazine, page 226:

     Good-Looking, Funny Guy — (Not funny-looking, good guy), 36, Jewish, athletic.

Derived terms

• backward-looking
• bad-looking
• fine-looking
• forward-looking
• full-looking
• funny-looking
• good-looking
• ill-looking
• inward-looking
• nice-looking
• not as green as one is cabbage-looking
• plain-looking
• well-looking

 

Related terms

• caught looking
• here's looking at you
• looking glass
• not see for looking
• on the outside, looking in
• strike out looking
• what are you looking at

 

Etymology 2

From Middle English lokinge, lokunge, from Old English *lōcung (attested in Old English þurhlōcung), equivalent to look +‎ -ing.

Noun

looking (plural lookings)

1. The act of one who looks; a glance.
   • 2005, Felix Driver, Luciana Martins, Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire, page 162:

     A complicated interplay of lookings and viewings is in play. The staging and performance of the photograph, then, is as much the subject of the photograph as the ostensible subjects […]

Anagrams

• kilogon

Middle English

Etymology

From Old English *lōcung (attested in Old English þurhlōcung).

Noun

looking (plural lookings)

1. The manner in which one looks; appearance; countenance.
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Clerke of Oxenfordes Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     Al drery was his chere and his lokyng.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)