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to march out

to march out

7 4.4
Leave a building or narrow place walking together in neat rows
  • phrasal verb
  • /mɑrtʃ aʊt/
translation icon : salir en formación
  • You're gonna turn around and march out of here now.

We were marched out, put into Paddy wagons and registered.

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Examples

  • The soldiers turn to the right and start to march out past the reviewing stand.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • The soldiers lined up and began to march out onto the parade ground.

  • You have one minute to march out that door.

  • Or you can march out of my apartment and never call me again.

  • "Max!" he called and broke away from the other troops he had marched out with.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • They marched out single-file, hands in the air.

  • Trailed by the others, Val and Earl march out and leap into their truck, Val driving now.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • Monty slid his barely touched drink in front of me, then marched out of the drugstore.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • On the day after a dragon was killed at Stronghold, Amiel marched out of Medawari.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • There was never a happier lot of men that marched out of Andersonville Prison on March 20th, 1865 on the way to freedom, not that any of them were in a physical condition to cause happiness, but because of the horrors they were leaving and the comforts they hoped soon to find.

Synonyms

to troop
vsto march out
6 3.8

To move together in a group, often slowly and in an orderly way

is about leaving an enclosed place in ordered formation rather than general group movement
to debouch
vsto march out
  • Formal
1 9.9

To come out of a narrow place into a wider open area

is specific to people leaving a shelter in ordered formation

Antonyms

1.0

To go into a building, room, or area

to stay put
  • Informal
133 2.0

Remain in the same place without moving

How Organized

to deploy
371 5.6
to march out
7 4.4
to file out
7 3.7
to leave
1.0
to flow out
16 2.9

Surface Forms

march out infinitive
marched out past participle
marching out present participle
marches out third person singular

Morphology

march + out

The meaning 'to leave a confined or sheltered place in a marching formation' is directly and compositionally derived from 'march' (to walk in organized formation) plus 'out' (away from the interior). This motion verb + particle pattern is common and cross-linguistically straightforward, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The phrasal verb march out comes from soldiers leaving a hall, camp, or canyon in neat rows to go into open ground. march means to walk in step and out shows leaving, so the phrase means 'to leave a sheltered or narrow place in rows'.