Outlook

How to spell outlook

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce outlook

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does outlook mean?

1. nounA person's general attitude towards life or their way of regarding things.
2. nounThe likely future course or prospects of something, especially as predicted.
3. nounA scene or view from a particular place, especially a wide or elevated one.

Outlook in a sentence

• Her positive outlook helped the whole team through a difficult quarter.

• The economic outlook for next year remains uncertain.

• The cabin offered a stunning outlook across the valley.

• Travelling abroad broadened his outlook on work and money.

• Forecasters described the outlook for the weekend as cold and wet.

• From the cliff path the outlook over the harbour was breathtaking.

Where does outlook come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Outlook is a transparent English compound, joining the native word 'out', from Old English 'ut' meaning 'beyond' or 'outward', to 'look', from Old English 'locian', meaning 'to use one's eyes' or 'to gaze'. The literal sense came first: from the 1600s an outlook was the physical act of keeping watch, or the scene a person could see when looking out from a high or open place. Over the following century the meaning drifted from the eye to the mind, so that by the 1700s 'outlook' could describe a mental viewpoint or general attitude. The forward-looking sense, the prospect for what is likely to come, grew naturally out of this idea of looking ahead into the distance. Because both halves are everyday words, the spelling is reliably regular, with no silent letters or hidden roots to trip a writer.

How the word is built

• out- (outward, beyond)
• look (to see, view)