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Glite Dictionary
to cook out

to cook out

1 3.5
Make food outside on a grill or open fire
  • phrasal verb
  • /kʊk aʊt/
  • US
translation icon : hacer una parrillada
  • Don't forget to bring the burgers when we cook out at the park this Saturday.
  • cook out here

Examples

  • Every summer, our family gathers to cook out by the lake, enjoying barbecued ribs.

  • Oh yeah, you still coming to cook out?

    Skinned Alive (1990)

  • Let him cook out there for a while.

    Vanishing Point (1971)

  • I thought we were cooking out.

    Short Cuts (1993)

  • Every summer after that, when it was time to cook out, it was always my choice to get in that pickup truck with my father.

  • You said cook out.

    Triple Crossed (2013)

  • They're cooking out on the patio, and a breeze brings me the smell of smoke.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • But he and I, along with Julian and Arch, had become a unit: the four of us hiked, we fished, we cooked out, and we took turns choosing movies.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • On sunny weekends, we love to cook out with friends in the backyard.

Synonyms

to grill
vsto cook out
140 1.0

To cook food over direct heat on metal bars

applies specifically to cooking outdoors over open fire or metal grate
to barbecue
vsto cook out
50 1.3

To cook food outdoors on a grill or over an open fire

is for outdoor cooking of any food not only meat
to charbroil
vsto cook out
  • US
1 3.5

To cook food over hot coals or an open flame to give it a slightly charred, smoky taste

focuses on outdoor cooking overall rather than the high heat searing method

Surface Forms

cook out infinitive
cooked out past
cooked out past participle
cooking out present participle
cooks out third person singular

Morphology

cook + out

The meaning 'to cook food outdoors' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'cook' (prepare food) with 'out' (away from the interior; outdoors), so the overall sense is literal and compositional. This verb + particle pattern is common and cross-linguistically straightforward, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

The phrasal verb cook out comes from outdoor parties where people actually cook food out in the open over a fire or a grill. So it means 'to cook food outdoors'.