to hide out
- phrasal verb
- /haɪd aʊt/
- Informal
- The fugitive chose to hide out in an abandoned cabin deep in the woods.
- place to hide out
- hide out somewhere
- hide out of sight
He was caught hiding out in the Cuban underground.
- He was caught hiding out in the Cuban underground.
- And their, their job was if the Soviet Union invaded, they would go to ground, hide out in their safe houses.
- Him and his men are walking closer, and he thinks that they're just hiding out and that they're going to go and capture them.
- And he'd been sort of like kind of hiding out because he by this point was, had been accused of sex crimes in Sweden.
- And The funny thing is humans can kind of hide out from that that interface.
Examples
-
I can see how he might be hiding out somewhere, maybe down in Louisiana where he was born.
Fiction book (1998) -
From 1930 to 1937, he lived here and there, mostly hiding out in the southern regions of the country.
Fiction book (2001) -
Well, then, we'll hide out here for a while.
-
And why were you hiding out?
-
Or maybe you just wanted to hide out for a while.
-
How much longer can you hide out here?
-
Look, we gonna find you a place to hide out for a few days until you can make sense again.
-
I figure we can hide out for a few days while I try to think this mess through.
Fiction book (1995) -
I vote we all meet tonight and hide out in the Clays' yard," said Kevin.
Fiction book (2000) -
When my mom and dad used to fight, I used to steal one of my dad's six-packs and go hide out in the tree fort.
Synonyms
To keep something so others cannot see or understand it
To stay hidden and move secretly to watch or frighten people
To stay in a safe place and avoid going out, often to hide
To hide and work in secret to avoid arrest or attention
To stay out of sight to avoid trouble
To hide from people to avoid trouble or attention
Antonyms
How Hidden
- Informal
- Informal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to stay in a secret place' is directly derivable from combining 'hide' (to put out of sight) with 'out' (away from the interior), where the particle conveys being away/away from others. This phrasal-verb pattern (hide out / hide away) is compositional and common across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The phrasal verb hide out comes from the simple picture of a person who hides and stays out of sight in a secret place so no one can find them. So, hide out means 'to stay in a secret place, especially to avoid trouble or danger'.