to look through
180
2.8
- phrasal verb
:
revisar
- Before the meeting, I will look through the agenda to ensure I am prepared.
- look through the essay
- start to look through
David, I've been looking through your cookbook.
- David, I've been looking through your cookbook.
- OK, then how about everyone take a look through Yulia's script?
- You can tell a lot by looking through a person's credit report.
- We, I'm just looking through my favorites.
- So why don't we look through all the collections and let's see.
- All right, so let's look through these worms and see what we got.
- Because AI has the data and will say, hey, I'm looking through the data.
- If you look through, I don't know if you've looked through the MPs register of interests.
- And we can read this out and look through the data.
- So what you did was you read the book, you looked through some documents, and that's all he did.
Examples
-
I need to look through these documents to find the answers to my questions.
-
And now they were all desperately looking through the crowd for familiar faces.
Fiction book (1991) -
Oh, I also need to look through the Radio Times.
-
You looked through my search history.
-
And let's just quickly look through the steps that are involved.
-
You can tell a lot by looking through a person's credit report.
-
I'm going to look through his things.
-
I have a bunch of books that I'm that I'm looking through to find inspiration.
-
If you look through my work, you'll see I try to present a balanced view of my subjects.
-
Explore the websites of big agencies and look through their lists of represented authors.
Academic text (2010)
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Study something carefully to understand it or decide
∞
1.3
To look at something to check it or find information
∞
2.8
To look carefully at something to find facts
∞
2.5
To look at or test something to learn more about it
∞
1.0
To look at something carefully to understand it
868
2.5
To look at something carefully to find facts or problems
675
3.2
To study something carefully to understand it better
642
2.5
To check something carefully, like papers or work
573
2.8
Examine something carefully to find out more
412
1.3
To check something carefully, for example an essay or a machine
390
2.7
To look at something carefully to find mistakes or missing details
357
1.0
To look at something carefully
202
2.5
To look at something carefully to check if it works or is safe
149
4.1
To look closely at something that is hard to see
70
6.2
To look at something very carefully to check for mistakes
61
3.7
To look carefully through information to find what is important
59
3.3
To look at something carefully to see what it is like
44
3.9
To look through many things carefully to find something specific
32
7.0
To read something slowly and carefully to understand it
28
5.5
To study things like books or papers carefully to find information
18
5.4
To look carefully at a place or person to get information before you act
4
3.2
To look at something carefully and check all its parts
Antonyms
How Careful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to examine or review something carefully' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'look' (to direct one's eyes) with 'through' (completely, from start to finish); together they convey inspecting something thoroughly. This verb+particle composition is a regular, compositional pattern and is likely to be guessed by a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
The phrasal verb look through comes from the simple image of using your eyes to look and move through pages or a pile of papers to find or check something. So it means 'to examine' or 'review' something carefully, often by reading.